


Wonderland

by NancyBrown



Series: Rabbit Hole AU [2]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-04
Updated: 2010-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-10 09:18:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/pseuds/NancyBrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack returns to Cardiff, but nothing's the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Characters: ensemble  
> Pairings: Yes. Many.  
> Spoilers: Nu!Who 'verse up through CoE, possible casting spoilers for '09 Christmas special  
> Warnings: extreme self-indulgence, angsty emo (mostly Jack), character death (also mostly Jack), child endangerment, mentions of torture circa The Year That Never Was, sentence fragments, and believe it or not given the other warnings, massive amounts of fluff. It is deeply twee, interspersed with moderate horror.  
> Beta: With greatest thanks to **brinshannara** for the translation and my beloved Ab for the read-through.  
> Author's Note: I hadn't intended to write a sequel to "Six Hundred Seconds" (and in fact suggest that anyone who enjoyed that story avoid this one). But then I looked down into the rabbit hole, and lo, the bunnies living there were so very densely fluffy that they changed the orbits of nearby stars. Title in honour of said rabbit hole and not the Who novel.

VVVVV  
Prelude  
VVVVV

The breath flew out of him as the door to the TARDIS opened onto the scene of destruction. Jack looked away, looked back at the Doctor. "Here?"

"Here. You always come back here."

"I didn't intend to. I was thinking that moon in the Rygellian Cluster, the one with that great bar. The waitresses dress entirely in different shades of light. Know the place?"

The Doctor tilted his head, which could have been a yes and could have been a no, or could have been a stray memory of a time he rescued some cute young thing from virtual slavery and out-thought an alien menace over banana daiquiris.

Jack breathed out and looked at the mess in the Plass. No more police tape, much of the actual rubble taken away, more signs of construction-related jumble than he'd thought at first glance. "When are we?"

"A bit after you left. Not long." He always said things like that with certainty, and never mind if they ended up five years and three hundred miles away from where he stated with authority that they ought to be. Jack found it part of the Doctor's exasperating charm.

"I don't want to be here. Can't we refuel and just go?" He tried to keep the whine out of his voice.

"I can. Your ride's over." The door stayed open. Jack watched it warily, as though the Doctor was asking him to walk into a fire. Everything hurt, and would hurt so much more when Jack was out there surrounded by the memories he'd been trying to outrun. Maybe he'd drown in them instead. Out of the deaths he'd experienced, drowning hadn't been as pleasant as he'd been led to believe. His lungs had filled with water he could not choke out, and he'd flailed for air he could not reach. And here he was again.

"We'll see each other again," the Doctor said gently. "I guarantee it."

_"Never doubted him. Never will."_

No goodbyes. Jack had said his, at last. The Doctor made a habit of not even trying.

Instead, Jack drew in his shoulders and stepped out carefully, wondering if each step would burn him, freeze him, needle him. The ground was solid under his feet, and as he breathed in, the air tasted like home. Behind him, the door closed, and Jack pulled in another ragged breath.

Home. Right.

VVVVV  
Part One  
VVVVV

Jack walked across the ruins of the Plass and examined the area. Yes, definitely under construction. A Council-approved plan was posted, describing the improvements they were making to the site in memory of those who'd died in the "terrorist attack." That had been the official story, though no one had died in the blast except Jack. He'd kicked Gwen out, had to drag Ianto to the lift to get him out in time, but they'd survived.

He wondered who the government had made disappear conveniently at the same time. Had they found the bodies in the morgue? In cold storage? Were Suzie and Gray, and for that matter Janet, listed in some deliberately miswritten roster of fallen victims? Or were they still buried deep below where he stood, to be found by confused archaeologists in a thousand years' time?

He thought about going down to the other entrance to see what was being done to the wreckage down there, but stopped short when he realised just considering looking at the destroyed Tourist Information Centre was making his palms sweat and his chest tighten. No.

He turned on his heel and walked away from the site, from the TARDIS, from everything. This wasn't home, not anymore.

He listened to the TARDIS hum, and without turning his head, knew it was gone.

Jack needed a place to sleep, something to eat, and time to figure out how he was going to start on the rest of his very long life. He couldn't bear the thought of contacting Gwen. Her baby was due soon, if she hadn't already delivered. Jack could not be near children. Not yet.

He stopped by a machine to get some cash out. His card still worked, and the balance looked like he had drawn a couple more paycheques than he last remembered. The date on his receipt was a month after he'd left Gwen and Rhys on the hillside and fled Earth. No baby, then. He would call her later.

After lunch. Some comfort food was exactly what he needed, something familiar. He walked to the Thai place down the street, but it and the Indian restaurant next door both held placards in their windows advertising that they were closed Mondays.

Today was the first Monday of the rest of his life, and it would start with - he checked another two doors down - pizza. Jubilee Pizza was open, Monday or not. He went inside.

Jubilee didn't do much dine-in business, so it was only a minute until he had a seat at a tiny table in the corner, staring at a menu, and the normalcy of it all took his breath away again. The waiter, a little too spotty to be cute, had just come back to take his order when Jack heard his name. His stomach sank. It was too soon, He shouldn't have come here, not where people knew him, not until he was ready. He turned to see who it was.

"Oi! You Jack Harkness?" asked the balding man at the counter, beefy arms resting in front of him.

"That's me," he said. Maybe it was time to change that. He'd worn a dead man's name long enough. He could be someone else now. Walk out of here, change his passport, become Larry Somebody. He'd make a good Larry.

"Told you," said a blonde girl. "You gonna take these or what?" She pulled out three pizzas from the warmer. "Save me a trip, yeah?"

Jack stood up and went to the counter. The name on the slip wasn't his. Gwen had ordered them for delivery to an address he didn't recognize, but it wasn't far. He glanced up at the blonde girl. "I can take them." He pulled out his wallet.

Her face broke into a smile, and he returned it automatically, slipping into flirt mode while he searched his memory for her name. She was familiar, had surely delivered to them via the Tourist Centre before, which was why she would know a pizza for Gwen was a pizza for him too.

As he counted out money for the food, he tried not to think about the Tourist Info Centre, but it was like not thinking about the rhinoceros, and so just as her boss said her name, Jack knew it already. "Thanks, Annie."

"Thank you! Just between you and me, I don't think that new girl likes me much."

He made a noise in his throat, not a "yes," not a "no," so that he didn't have to ask who the new girl was. Annie's hair was different, but it had been a few years since he'd shot her down in the deep dungeons of the Hub, shot the person who'd been wearing her body like a new camisole. Jack liked the new look, he decided, and offered her another 100 Watt smile to cover the panic he felt welling inside him.

"Gotta go," he said, and grabbed the pizzas without taking his change. Not running, he still managed to be around the corner in five seconds flat.

Okay. So. They'd changed time. The Doctor had, and Jack too. Not because Jack had asked, because the Doctor never would have said yes, not in five billion years, not to Jack. But someone else had asked him, had made him promise, and while the Doctor broke his promises as often as not, he did try to keep them when he could. What the Doctor could not do for Jack, he did for a dying woman who'd loved him once. (_He loves us all_, Jack's mind told him quietly, far back in the place he occasionally allowed himself forgiveness. As usual, he told it to shut up.) A little change made at the right time, or so the Doctor said, and there had never been a Cyberman in their basement, and she had never murdered Annie.

Jack glanced at the receipt again. He needed to talk to Gwen. He'd stepped onto a new world, and he was suddenly and sharply uncertain of his footing.

Across the way, down the street, and now he recognised where he was: a new building they'd been constructing for the past year. He'd driven by the site countless times, and now it was all shiny windows and cool steel. Modern and flashy, and for the life of him, he couldn't picture Gwen here. No suite number on the pizza, so no idea where she was.

Inside, he read the list of businesses on the wall, and then the warning bells rang in his head. Harper's Jellied Eels was the most obvious, but he'd be damned if there was a real Smith &amp; Jones business in the building. Sunrise Software Solutions? Enfys Tours? And what was H3? He made a note of the suites and then followed the discreet number plates to the jellied eel office. As he'd suspected, while he could see a prim yet tasteful reception area through the glass, the door was locked with a "Sorry, we're closed" sign in the window. Smith &amp; Jones had a different décor, and a differently-lettered sign.

A grin spread over his face.

H3 was next door. The light was on through the curtains over the windows. He went inside.

Lois looked up from the desk and her eyes lit up at the sight of him. "Jack!"

"Lois Habiba," he said, because he'd discovered many years back that saying full names helped him remember them when the faces ran together too much. So Lois was working as their front doorkeeper now. Gone were the homey pile of maps and brochures with which they'd disguised their last headquarters. Instead, he saw a large stylised logo on the reception desk, a few posters claiming that "H3 worked for me!" and two chairs with some elderly magazines on a table between them.

"I brought pizza." He didn't hug her. He was not at that point with her in his timeline, wasn't sure about this one.

"Fantastic. Also, you're late."

"I'm … really not myself today."

"So who are you, then?" she asked with a smile. "Because whoever it is is late, too." She tilted her head. "Go on in, before it gets cold."

Jack opened the door to the right and behind her desk. Inside, the office stretched comfortably out to encompass, at a quick guess, this half of the building. The private lift he spied to his left enabled access to the rest. Easy cover in a building that looked like half of Cardiff: smack in-between this week's brand new businesses and last month's old ideas that were already closed.

Computer terminals filled most of this space, though corridors and offices branched out everywhere. Not like the Hub, not quite, but also not dissimilar. The ceiling was too low for Myfanwy, but perhaps well above them there was a hall or atrium big enough to be used as a bird cage for a dinosaur.

He liked it, grudgingly.

Jack set the pizzas down on the first table he saw, brushing aside some papers as he did.

"Hey!" came a shout from behind him. "Mind the work!" And it wasn't so much that the shout couldn't have happened, because this was not his world and not the life he remembered and oh God the threads were so far unraveled, but he hadn't even let himself think or hope.

"Sorry," he said with his heart in his mouth, and he stacked the papers neatly. "How're you doing, Toshiko?"

And then he wished he'd looked at her a second before asking, as she approached the table in a wheelchair with slanted wheels. Her face was different, harder. She didn't smile when she saw him. "You're late. She's going to kill you, you know."

"I wouldn't be surprised." He bent over and kissed her on the head.

"Stop it," she said, and there was no friendliness to her irritation.

"Sorry," he said again. Different world, different rules, and he could fake his way through. He could.

"Well, go see her. Get it over with quickly." Tosh grabbed the pizzas and took them towards another room.

Jack scanned the offices for nameplates, found only numbers. Not helpful. He walked past empty offices, though these were clearly often used, until he came to one with a light on, and he tapped on the door frame.

"Yeah?" came Gwen's voice.

"It's me."

"Where the hell have you been?" she shouted. "And you better bloody answer 'dead, ma'am,' or so help me … "

He almost told her, as he walked in. Still Gwen, still beautiful, if massively pregnant and scowling at him from behind stacks of reports.

_Jack hears him say, "He was supposed to take that Welsh bitch in with him, too, but at least his little pet died." Jack doesn't hear much after that._

"Did you pick up the TARDIS on the scans a little bit ago?" he asked instead.

"Why d'you think we've been trying to reach you? Don't you ever answer your mobile?"

His mobile. Which he'd dropped into a cesspit behind one of too many bars four planets ago when he'd looked at it and started shaking and couldn't stand it anymore.

"I lost it."

"You're an idiot."

"I brought pizza."

"Then you're an idiot with pizza. I see your comm is gone, too."

"Look … " he said, and he heard voices from outside. Familiar voices. No …

Jack turned on his heel and went out of Gwen's office, his hand already on his gun. He had it pointed at Johnson's face before she drew breath to say hello.

"Hi," he said, resisting the impulse to shoot her. "Why are you here?"

A hand covered his, very gently. "It's lunchtime, mate," said Mickey. "No one is allowed to die at lunch. Remember? We never did get those stains out of the carpet after Emma stabbed you over the Pad Thai."

Jack pulled his gun away slowly, then pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. Johnson shrugged and went to where Tosh had already set out plates, helping herself to two slices.

"Mind some advice?" said Mickey in a low voice. "Work that out with her. Where were you this morning?"

Jack found a chair and sat heavily in it. Gwen walked out of her office, stood in the doorway watching him. To her, he said, "Okay. I've got a problem." He could hear Tosh and Johnson come closer. He was betting Lois had a feed in here as well. "I thought I could deal with it, but apparently not so much."

"What is it, Jack?" Gwen asked.

"I've been given a dose of Retcon. Big."

"How big?" asked Tosh, no longer pretending not to listen.

He did the mental math. "Three years. Maybe four."

"Oh my God," said Gwen. "Do you … do you even know who we are?"

He grinned weakly. "I remember you, Gwen Cooper. And I've known Mickey Mouse here for over a century. I've got substitute memories, and they go back a long way."

Tosh was already beside him scanning. "That's a massive reprogramming. You shouldn't be able to even stand up right now."

"I'm special." It was the best explanation he could think of to cover his changed memories, at least that didn't involve mentioning, "By the way, I may have broken time so keep an eye out for giant flying monsters trying to eat us all, okay?"

"It's already vanished from your bloodstream," Tosh said. Nice tech. New. No blood samples required. Which was good since Owen …

"Where's Owen?" he blurted out. Tosh's expression told him what he needed to know before Gwen said in a gentle voice, "He died, love. A while back. You don't remember at all?"

"I did," he said. "I hoped I was wrong." Tosh had already put her scanner down and was typing into a keyboard, her head purposely turned away.

Mickey cleared his throat. "Lunchtime. Then we can figure out what's wrong with Captain Smiley."

VVVVV

Martha arrived a few hours later. Gwen had called her, letting Jack know they still didn't have their own doctor and needing one who was familiar with Jack's unique background. "You're off the street," Gwen said, "until we know who did this to you and why."

"The street" turned out to be the current code for their field agents: trapping Weevils, chasing down artifacts, that sort of thing. Jack was on that team with Johnson and Mickey. Lois was being trained for it, but was still well in the "not allowed to carry a gun yet" stage. Due to her condition - and Jack was getting a sneaking suspicion that none of the others directly wanted to say "due to her being much better at it than Jack" - Gwen managed everything at the Hub, from handing out assignments and directing their energies to keeping an eye open for desperately needed new talent.

Jack was in charge, Gwen had assured him as he took this in, but he seemed to be in charge of things like having to deal with the politicians, signing things that required someone's signature, and not getting in the way while Tosh figured out what was going on with the Rift and Gwen ordered them to deal with it.

"How long was I gone?" he asked, as Martha took the first of what would be a dozen blood samples.

"Which time?" Gwen asked. Lois brought in another stack of papers. Jack hadn't had to verbalise his desire to read the basic history of the team over the past four years before she had gathered the information, but she hadn't handed them over until Martha had given them the nod that Jack was really Jack and not some imposter trying to infiltrate.

Good instincts there, he mused. Johnson had offered to shoot him in the head to positively confirm his identity. Also a good instinct, but he made a note to give her a wide berth for a while until he knew precisely her place here, and why someone he associated with blowing him up was now on his team. She and Mickey had gone back out as soon as they'd eaten, maybe thinking the same thing.

"How many times have I left?"

"Three, while I've been here. The Doctor came and you left us right after you came back from the Abaddon incident. You were gone for months." The flicker in her eyes was guilt, and he nodded. They'd opened the Rift in this world, too, and he'd died to fix it. He wondered if he'd spent a year under the Master's loving care. Martha was here, so probably. "When the Earth was taken by the Daleks, you left us to go find the Doctor."

"I'm consistent."

"You also went on a long holiday after the incident with the 456." The false jollity as she said it was as telling as her eyes.

"I'll read that report later," he said. The pain was back, the sour taste in his mouth and the need to run, just run.

"You really don't remember?" Martha asked, as she examined his vitals. "You don't even want to know how much adrenaline just shot through your system."

"Like I said, I remember something. But it's all wrong." He swallowed. "I just need to know what really happened, so I can sort it out." Half-lies were easier than full lies. Always had been.

"Do you have any idea who would have done this to you?"

He shook his head.

Gwen said, "We'll have to make a list. All your local enemies. Anyone from other times with a big enough grudge. Start narrowing it down."

"Focus on people who know about you," Martha said. "You can't die, maybe modifying your memory is the next best thing for someone."

"Good thought," said Gwen. "We had a lost memory incident a little over a year ago. The whole team. Could be related."

Lois said, "Two weeks lost, wasn't it?" Gwen nodded. "Maybe that same problem came back?"

"Just for Jack?" Gwen said. "Possible."

"Keep on the Retcon angle," Martha said, finishing up her notes. "That's a lot of drug, and the last I checked, you had the lion's share of the world's supply locked up downstairs. Though I still can't see any traces in his bloodstream." She patted Jack's arm absently, like a puppy the vet had just remembered was still on the table.

"Tosh is already looking into it," Gwen said, and they shared a look which Jack couldn't read at all.

"Yeah," said Martha, breaking first. "Let me know what she finds. I should be going."

"Stick around," Jack said. "I need to compare notes with people." He cocked an eyebrow. "End of the World Survivors' Club ring any bells?"

"Too many," Martha said. "Tish says hi, by the way." She paused. "Do you remember Tish?"

"I do. Send her my love." It had been a long, painful year, and Martha's sister had been the one bright thing he'd held onto. They'd agreed, after, that it wasn't something either wanted to continue; too many bad memories clouding the good. He was sure she hadn't mentioned their fling to Martha in his timeline. Just another thing to get past from a year no one remembered but them.

"Read the reports," Martha said. "If you want to chat, you have my number." She pecked a kiss on his cheek, and he saw her wedding ring. So things with Martha had stayed the same. Good. He wouldn't have wished the whole walking the Earth thing on her, but she seemed to have recovered from it as well as she had in his memory.

"How was the wedding?"

"Perfect," said Martha, with that old smile. "You had a great time."

_It's a very rare day off for the three of them, but it's Martha's wedding and Jack is determined to go. He bickers with Rhys on the entire ride up, because he's bored. When Martha's parents see him, they hug him and laugh with him like a long-lost son. He finally meets Leo, who isn't as confused as Gwen and Ianto, but he's clearly not sharing in the "we survived hell together" party at Table One, either. Jack dances with the bride, dances with the bride's sister, dances with his boyfriend, and kisses almost everyone in the room before they have to leave._

On the ride back to Cardiff, he finally tells them about the lost year. Not all of it, but enough, and then the car is quiet and full of ghosts the rest of the way home.

"I'll let you know when I find something," said Martha. Her samples safely stowed in her UNIT briefcase, she gave a last round of hugs and was gone.

After she'd left, Tosh came back from the basement archives. "All our Retcon is accounted for." She handed a file folder to Gwen, who glanced at it and handed it to Jack.

This was new. While he'd had a system for tracking their amnesia pills, this was a proper file with spaces for names, dates, reasons and his or Gwen's signature for approval for every pill. The record only went back about six months.

"Nothing was missing from the supply," Tosh said. "I counted just to make sure."

"We still don't have the numbers for Torchwood 2's supply," Lois said. "I need to prod them again. And no one knows for certain what was scavenged from the ruins of Torchwood 1. Or for that matter, the original Hub."

"We got it all," said Johnson, coming in unannounced. "I was in charge of that cleanup. Nothing went off-site that didn't get catalogued."

The temperature in the room dropped. Jack itched to punch her, and it seemed Gwen and Tosh would happily join him. Lois stepped in carefully, "We still haven't mined the deeper levels. And there was that trouble with those kids. For all we know, the world's supply of Retcon is in the hands of a seventeen year old dealer who thinks it's Ecstasy."

Jack's neck prickled, just a little. The problem with tracking down who'd given him Retcon was not going to be helped by his not having been given any. He hated to see them waste time.

"Let's not make it a priority for now," he said. "Maybe someone was screwing with my head. Fine. We'll sort it out by comparing notes eventually. Right now, we have work to do."

He spent the rest of the afternoon helping Tosh work on their new Rift Manipulator. He could remember a lot of the details from the old one, but she'd made improvements to the design and he happily let her tell him what to do. After Mickey had finished with his report on whatever he and Johnson had been chasing down after lunch, he joined them, joking around with Jack as they rewired a new panel Tosh wanted to install.

When she went to the Ladies' for some peace and quiet, Jack asked him, "How long have you been with our team? In my memory, I offered you a job but you turned me down."

Mickey shrugged, wiping his hands on a rag. "I almost did. Martha told me you really needed the help, and she asked me to keep an eye on you for her. Right after the Daleks came."

"Is Rose … "

"Back in that other universe?" Mickey looked down, at his knees, at the floor. "With that other Doctor. Yeah. And I'm here." He glanced around the office. "Not sure that was my best idea. I've been shot, almost blown up, and in jail since."

Jack laughed. "What'd you end up in jail for?"

Mickey's eyes widened. "You really don't know?"

"Total blank, me."

"Well, after you blew up," Mickey glanced at him, waited for Jack's nod, "we all got separated, didn't we? Me and Tosh figured out where you'd been taken, busted you out. Gwen and Rhys too, but they weren't dead. Johnson had buried _you_ in concrete. Got picked up while we was on the run after."

"Why is Johnson here?"

"You recruited her, mate. Made a big show of forgiving her for Eugene. I don't think the others have, yet."

"Eugene?"

Mickey sat back. Tosh came back to where they were. "Eugene Jones? Squirrelly guy? Made the coffee? Tidied up around the place?"

He thought back. The name was familiar, and he couldn't stop the twitch at the name Jones and the idea of him making coffee.

"He was a dear," Tosh said, grief on her face. She typed in something and pulled up a picture. Jack's memory kicked in. One of Gwen's admirers and Torchwood's hangers-on, dead in a hit and run years back.

"Eugene?" He remembered a nervous young man, his hands always full of so-called alien artifacts that were usually painted cheese or unusual-looking pieces of common quartz.

"Great guy," Mickey said. "He got me set up when I started, showed me the ropes. Always had time for a chat when things got weird, always with a helping hand."

"Eugene."

Tosh said, "He was so proud when you told the whole team that he was our most valuable member."

"Eugene. Jones." He'd come back from the dead, briefly. Saved Gwen's life. Maybe he did have it in him to be Torchwood material. They'd never known.

"His coffee was crap," said Mickey, fondly. "But he made great tea. Emma always loved his tea."

"Emma?"

Tosh glared at him. "Tell me you remember Emma."

"Hum me a few bars."

"Emma Cowell. Gorgeous girl," said Mickey.

"Came through the Rift in a plane," Tosh said, and Jack remembered.

"I know her. I thought she'd gone to London."

"She came back," Tosh said, and again those sad eyes.

"Tell me how we lost them," Jack said. "Please."

"Eugene blew up with you," Mickey said. "Didn't make it out in time. Lockdown. There wasn't enough left to give his Mum."

"And Emma?"

"Well, she went with you into Thames House, didn't she? And you were the only one who walked out alive. You and that Dekker guy."

Jack closed his eyes. That Dekker guy hadn't been who or what he'd been claiming, but it didn't help to tell them, not now. He flashed back to Thames House all the time, dying and still trying to hold onto the man he hadn't admitted to himself that he loved. The flashes were always interspersed with the next day, the blood streaming from Steven's nose, Alice screaming.

Too much pain.

"Did I love Emma?"

"You love all of us," Tosh said. "Emma was sweet on Eugene. I think you took Eugene home a few nights. Gwen shot you after you slept with Emma, so I don't think that went on." She watched him closely. "You really don't remember at all."

"I really don't." Eugene? Really?

"It took a lot out of you when Emma died. And then the next day."

His mouth went dry. "I don't want to hear about the next day." Not again.

"Yeah," said Mickey. "I don't blame you."

"You're not a monster," Tosh said. "You did what you had to do. You always do what needs to be done."

Jack sat back on his heels. "Stop. Please stop." Screaming in his ears. All that power flowing though such a tiny body. If it could have been Jack instead … "It should have been me," he said through clenched teeth.

Tosh placed her hand on his arm. "If you could have, you would have. We all know that. We all would have done the same." Nothing but kindness and sympathy on her face, and he couldn't bear to look at her.

"I shouldn't have come back," he said. "I don't deserve to be here."

"You don't think Gwen says the same thing?" Tosh said through tears. "You don't think I do?" She shot a glance to Mickey and left again. This time she didn't come back.

"Let it go, mate. You probably shouldn't have brought Johnson in. She's great and all, but they're still sore. Fix your family on your own time." And with that mysterious statement, he went after Tosh.

Jack went to Gwen's office. "Hi."

"Hi," she said, closing the window on her computer. "How're you feeling?"

"Lost."

"It's almost suppertime. I think a good night's sleep could help."

Jack looked out the window. It was still light out. "Since when do we go home this early?"

"Since it's been a slow day and my doctor says I need to rest. Everyone wins."

"Gwen?"

"Yes?"

"Where do I live?"

She sat back. "Oh."

"I used to live in the old Hub. I think."

"You did. Where did you stay afterwards? What do you remember?"

"I stayed at … a friend's place. Just a couple of days." Until the sheets had lost Ianto's scent and Jack had gone mad from the silences. "I didn't stay in one place much after that."

"You have a place in town. We also have sleeping quarters here, nice ones. Well, nice enough. You tend to stay here most nights. D'you want me to send someone to take you home and stay with you? I think Mickey's free tonight."

"I'll stay here."

"Good idea. How about some supper? We can go to the café."

"Sure." He didn't know of a café nearby but getting out would do him some good.

She got her purse. "Come on."

The café was in fact located inside the building. The entire East side of the building was dedicated to Torchwood, under a dozen fake businesses. The West side had actual companies, including a spacious cafeteria with windows reaching up to the second floor. "Open 24 hours," read the sign on the door, and could that be any more perfect?

"Where do we keep Myfanwy?" Jack asked, as he took a tray.

"Who?"

He opened his mouth and closed it again. None of the rest of his team would have considered trapping and training a pterodactyl just to get Jack's attention. It was only after the incident with the Cyberman that he'd even considered wondering how Ianto had known about her chocolate fixation, and well after that before he'd 'fessed up to feeding her in the warehouse for days before using her to get to Jack.

"Never mind." He got his food. "Tell me you're eating more than that."

Gwen poked at her salad. "This is what we call a snack. Rhys will have proper supper ready when I get home, but I need some vegetables."

They sat down at a table to themselves. Other faces that he didn't recognise scattered at the other tables.

"They work here, too. Just not for us."

"Interesting cover."

"We took the tourist office idea and ran with it. We actually have a tourist office on the third floor. When someone's being punished, they have to sit there all day."

"What is H3?"

"A dynamic, multisourcing enterprise built on a proactive vision of a global future."

"What does that mean?"

"I have no idea, but Lois laughed her arse off for ten minutes after she came up with it." Gwen sipped her tea, a non-caffeinated brand. When Lucia had been pregnant, the rules had been different. When Alice had been pregnant, they'd changed again. God knew what Gwen's doctor was telling her now, but he suspected she wasn't mentioning her run-ins with alien tech.

"How are you, Gwen?"

"Same as always."

"I don't know always." He took her hand and squeezed it. "Pretend I've been in a coma for six months. Pretend I've been away."

"Oh, pretending now? I can do that. Well, I'm fine, thank you for asking and no thanks to you. I'm still annoyed with you for putting me on desk work, and I know why you did it. I'm scared half to death every time I send our team out without going with them, and I don't really breathe until they're back through the door and safe. It's worse when you're gone or out of range. When Lois starts going on real missions, I may go into labour from the stress. Is that a good start?"

He laughed. "Yes. Thank you." He took a bite of his sandwich, was surprised to find it was pretty good. "What's going on after you have the baby?"

"I have the biggest office for a reason. You already said I could have him with me."

"You're having a boy?" His Gwen hadn't wanted to know the baby's sex.

She nodded. "Rhys is over the moon about it, though he tries to say he just wants the baby to come out all healthy and not alien. Mickey says he can't wait for there to be a little more testosterone in the office."

_They've never had a Boys' Night Out because Owen says going out with just Jack is too much like a date. Once there are three of them, though, Jack and Owen bully the new guy into joining them at the pub. Owen hits on anything with a skirt, Jack hits on anything with a pulse, and Ianto just takes a long drink anytime someone approaches him, though when Jack's hands wander his way, he doesn't protest. Later, Jack will think it was all part of his plan, and much later will think it wasn't after all._

_There's karaoke at the third pub. Jack will not remember much about it except to cringe for months afterwards whenever anyone mentions the Sex Pistols._

_Hours later, they stagger out to the alley behind the fourth pub. Jack is taking the longest piss of his life against one wall, and trying to piece together the words to a dirty song he learned back in the fifty-first century. Ianto is busy on the other side of the alley losing his kebab and about three too many pints. The woman Owen has convinced to come outside with them punches him when he says something in her ear and then she goes back inside._

_The following morning, Suzie and Tosh make an effort to be extra loud, banging things in the Hub on purpose and laughing. Owen leaves early. Ianto, faintly green, sticks it out all day until Jack escapes to his bunker._

_The three of them never go out together again._

"I'll show him some testosterone."

"Please don't," Gwen giggled around a bite of tomato. "He's already seriously upset when you make him work the office for the gay cruise line. Which is your cover, by the way, if anyone asks."

"I can remember that. Do we ever have customers?" Ianto had always taken out his passive-aggressive urges on the poor souls who wandered into the Tourist Info Centre, when he wasn't taking them out on Owen. At least he'd never given Owen a map and a smile and told him to have a lovely time at what he knew was the most haunted bed and breakfast in the region.

"Since we don't advertise? Not usually. You did take that one sweet young couple on a ferry ride out of Swansea. Apparently the three of you had a blast."

"At some point, someone is going to have to make me a list of the people I've dated in the past three years just so I don't accidentally say something stupid."

Gwen suddenly found her salad very interesting.

"Gwen … "

"I would love to know what you think you remember," she said quietly, not meeting his eyes.

He tried to take her hand again, but she was less welcoming now. "I am unbelievably sorry that I don't remember that."

"Yes, you are," she said, taking her hand back again and stabbing lettuce leaves furiously. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. It was a long time ago."

"Mind if I ask when?"

"Do you remember a group of cannibal villagers trying to eat Owen and Tosh alive?"

"Sort of."

"Well. After that. Not for long. I felt bad about it." She played with her ring. He wondered if she knew she was doing it. "So we stopped." She'd never told Rhys about her affair with Owen, at least not that Rhys would ever remember. Had she confessed her affair with Jack to him, followed by Retcon? Was there any possible way to ask?

"Thanks. For telling me."

"Yeah. Well. Don't go telling anyone."

"I never kiss and tell."

"You do so. Usually a hundred years or so after they're dead, mind."

Her mobile rang, and of course it was Rhys. He had a sixth sense, which Jack occasionally was tempted to document, about what Gwen was doing at any given time. "I'll be home soon," she promised him, and hung up.

"Why don't you show me to where I can stay tonight and leave me with those files Lois found? I can catch up on what I've missed."

She nodded. "We can fill you in on the rest, I guess. You'll have the computer records. Those survived. The personnel issues will be something else."

"I can imagine."

VVVVV

Alone, eventually, Jack flipped through dry reports of his days with Torchwood in this timeline. The same aliens had invaded at more or less the same time. The world had nearly ended in more or less the same fashions, always to be held back by his team, or the Doctor, or even that gaggle of teenagers in Ealing whose den mother regularly sent him reports of the "See what we did there without waving guns in peoples' faces?" variety. Just like always.

A report, filled with Suzie's notes about a humanoid alien species who'd mistakenly thought Cardiff a fine place to start breeding, made a one-line note about Jack shooting a pteranodon in the midst of a hunt for something else entirely.

"Sorry, girl," he said aloud. "I didn't know."

Eugene Jones had joined up shortly after the incident at Brecon Beacons, on Gwen's recommendation. It would keep him out of trouble, she'd noted, and besides, wouldn't it have been a good idea to have someone whose job it was to make sure things were where they ought to be and make sure the team remembered to eat. Emma Louise Cowell had come through the Rift in December of that year, had gone to London under a new identity, and came back while Jack himself was listed as missing a few months later. Gwen had hired her as a friendly face to staff the Tourist Centre and act as a lookout.

There was a two week gap in the reports, followed by a terse explanation of group memory loss, as well as instructions from Jack himself, dated during the missing time, not to look closely at it. Rhys Williams was listed among those with an altered memory. Jack remembered this incident at about this time, but it had only been a few days for them. The part of him that wondered what had happened saw the note from himself again, and decided it wasn't something he wanted to think about, not really.

Dr. Owen Harper was listed as dead in the report on the Pharm. Posthumous commendation for giving his life for UNIT liaison Dr. Martha Jones. No further mentions, and Jack knew what to look for, so no resurrection for Owen. Why? Jack had found the second glove himself. But Ianto had reminded him about gloves coming in pairs. Jack had been scanning his memory for clues ever since, enough to piece them together and bring Owen back. Had to be.

Martha had stayed with them after Owen's death, and that was new.

The incident with Gray had gone as badly as expected, though he'd shot Tosh a few millimetres off, damaging her spinal cord. Martha had saved her life. The nuclear power plant, mentioned in a side note, had been stabilised by the people who worked there before it could go critical.

No wonder Tosh couldn't stand to look at Martha now. He wondered if Owen had shown that same puppylike crush on Martha in this timeline right before he died. He wondered if that mattered.

He'd been trying to avoid the thought, but now it was in front of him. Ianto had never been a part of Torchwood in this world, not One, not Three. People were alive today that wouldn't have been had he joined. At least one was dead who should be alive. Eugene had died later than before, Owen earlier (on a technicality). But as far as the world was concerned, as far as Torchwood was concerned, Ianto Jones hadn't been nearly as important to things as Jack had believed, and like every other time when he'd made a similar discovery, that the world would not end without someone Jack loved in it, he died a little in a way that had nothing to do with immortality.

He refused to read the report on the 456. Just thinking about it make the bile rise in his throat.

Instead, he broke down and did what he'd been itching to do since he'd seen the computer terminals glowing. Not thirty seconds later, he found the home address of Lisa and Ianto Jones in Paris. Not that he'd go. Not that he'd call. Not even that he'd try to hack into the CCTV in the small office where they worked together. He'd had his promised ten minutes to say goodbye, and he knew the Doctor would not be forgiving if he tried to steal more. Worse, he knew the penalty for breaking the timeline, even if he hadn't experienced it himself. The further he stayed away from Ianto, the less likely he and his friends were to be eaten by monsters, and that was how it had to be.

But Jack had an address, in a city he hadn't visited in years on a street he didn't know, and that one fact (well, coupled with Jack's hurried reassurance to himself that the world hadn't been overridden by aliens, demons or lawyers because of that one change) meant the rest of the changes had all been worth it.

Had to be.

He eventually fell asleep for an hour or so, in the standard-issue bed in their spare sleeping quarters. For the first time in months, his nightmares were quiet.

VVVVV

Jack woke well before daybreak. He managed to find the shower facilities, if not soap, and fresh clothes that looked like his. The café had decent coffee and edible pastries, and after a few tries, he figured out which office was supposed to be his. The lack of personal items wasn't really a surprise; most of his would have been destroyed in the Hub.

The programs were similar to those he remembered. Tosh had made updates, but he could still run her pattern-detecting software without problems, see what mischief the world was up to today.

Tosh showed up ten minutes later and showed him what he was doing wrong.

Lois arrived twenty minutes after that with better coffee and healthier food. (Also, when he demurred, a relayed comment from Martha that if the whole team didn't eat better, she'd start having Lois slip laxatives in their coffee.) Jack took the hint and a piece of toast. While they ate, the others made their ways in and Lois handed out agendas.

"What's this appointment at ten?" Jack asked.

"Dr. Sheffield. Normally, you see him on Fridays, but since your memory is mixed up, I scheduled you early this week."

"For what?" Followed closely by, "We have a doctor?"

"Head shrink," Mickey said around an apple.

Lois said, "The entire team has weekly visits with Dr. Sheffield. He's got clearance to know everything we do."

"He knows about you," Gwen said, swallowing a large bite of bagel with peanut butter. "And we have a standing rule that anyone who skips a session without an authorised reason and permission from you and I both is on automatic suspension without pay."

"Who the hell thought that was a good idea?"

The rest stared at him until it sunk in.

"Okay, but there's no way I would have suggested a shrink."

"That was me," Lois said, nibbling at a strawberry.

"Her second day," Gwen said, "Lois declared we all needed therapy. Then some bloody idiot told her to go arrange it if she felt that strongly about it."

"Me again?"

"You're his favorite patient," Tosh said.

"I don't need therapy."

Gwen said, "You said that before. But you also said it'd be a good idea so we didn't run into another Suzie problem."

"Ten AM," Lois said. "These are the authorised reasons for skipping a session."

Jack read the paper. He was amused to see "Dead" listed at the top, and was less amused by the asterisk which stated "If JH, automatically reschedule appointment for next day. If JH misses three sessions in a row due to death(s), suspension rules apply." No killing himself to get out of it, then. "In hospital" was a valid reason, as was "alien invasion requiring full Torchwood involvement." "Weevil hunting" was listed as unacceptable. So were "calling in sick," "having sex," and "calling in sick to have sex."

"Who wrote this list?"

Lois said, "We needed it to be thorough."

Tosh asked, "Any luck with your memory yet?"

"No," Jack said.

Johnson hadn't said a word, he noticed. She'd just watched him.

VVVVV

Jack sat in the only other chair in the office. There was a couch. Of course there was a couch. He wasn't going anywhere near it.

"Hi," said Dr. Sheffield warmly. He had sandy hair going to silver and blue eyes. No chance to check out his other assets, as it were, behind the desk.

"Hi."

"I was briefed that you've had some memory loss. Would you like to start there today?"

"No." Jack's memory was fine. It was time that was wrong.

"What do you remember?"

Jack stayed silent.

"Do you remember me?"

"No."

"So we have to re-establish trust. I've been seeing you for three months now, but we can start over."

"I don't need to start over. I don't need therapy."

"Ah," said the shrink.

"What 'ah?'"

"We'll be starting there, then. Jack Harkness, not your real name, official rank Captain though in what service you've remained vague. The Time Agency doesn't appear to have that rank." Jack raised his eyebrows at mention of the Agency. "I don't suppose you'd like to start with sharing your real name this time?"

"Not a chance."

The doctor sighed. "Would you like me to catch you up on what I know about you so far?"

"You just did."

"No, I identified you. I also know plenty about you. After the death of your father and your brother's abduction, both of which took place on the same day about three thousand years from now, your mother also effectively left you due to her grief. You developed a serious abandonment complex, which you compensated for by running away from home and forming intentionally brief attachments so you wouldn't be hurt again. That lasted as long as it took for your best friend to die, and it didn't stop the Time Agency from hurting you, but you could tell yourself that it didn't matter, not in the deep places inside you, not when they used you over and over, not even when they ripped out your memories. You left them before they could leave you.

"Your complex was suddenly and massively exacerbated by your meeting with the Doctor, who became both the father figure you'd been craving as well as the idealised mate who would never leave you. Except he did, and what's worse, he left you immortal, so that instead of worrying about people leaving you, you were now guaranteed to outlive and lose every single person you ever know or love.

"Since then, you've drifted, trying not to form attachments and failing. You've had countless short relationships, a few longer ones, and a marriage you yourself admit was doomed from day one. After having been abandoned again to be the de facto leader of Torchwood, you've used your power to surround yourself with damaged people, usually with parent issues of their own. You're happy to provide a substitute father figure, ironic since you've run away from your parental responsibilities otherwise. You care about your team against your better judgment, knowing that signing their employment contracts is as good as signing their death warrants. You focus your energies on those you think you can manipulate the easiest, alternately praising and abusing them until you induce a mild form of Stockholm Syndrome wherein they believe you and only you are the key to their happiness and survival. You end up with a Cult of You, surrounded by worshipers and deeply jealous of anyone who still has some sway over any of your followers, even as you claim you want those same followers to live independently of you and pursue normalcy. You know they won't, that you don't leave them with enough tools or free will, and you like that power. Then it gets someone killed and you wallow in guilt because you know you set them up to die for your aggrandisement.

"You were," and here he checked his notes, "captured and experimented on for a year by the former Prime Minister, a year which no one remembers except for you, a UNIT operative you haven't named, and her family. Strangely, despite the PM torturing your team to death in front of you, you did not hold yourself responsible for their fates. Which appear to have been undone anyway."

_The grating beneath him is still sticky with Owen's blood when they drag Gwen into Jack's cell, kicking and cursing. The Master is creative; she screams and she screams and she screams._

_He makes Lucy watch._

"It's only the deaths that you personally feel you should have prevented that drive you over the edge, but there are plenty of those. Of course, it's only been three months. We've probably just scratched the surface of what makes you tick."

The doctor sat back, not smiling. Jack would have shot him if he'd smiled. But then, the doctor seemed to know that, too.

"I hate you," Jack said instead.

"Good. Now we know where to begin."

VVVVV

Jack managed to finish his session without copping to the time switch. Dr. Sheffield was fascinated by Retcon, and encouraged Jack to think back to recent traumatic events to think about what he might be blocking. Jack couldn't deal with the thought of recent traumatic events, and spent the rest of the time talking about missing his dad.

He fled after his fifty minute hour, leaving the doctor writing up something. Apparently Jack had a prescription for sleeping pills that was active. He wondered if the other him had taken them.

"Help me with this," Tosh said when he came out, and handed him the ends of two leads while she soldered two more into place. "Thanks."

"Do you have to see the shrink too?"

"We all do."

"We did fine before without one."

"Lois says half our problem is thinking no one understands our problems, so we end up getting ourselves killed. Gwen agrees with her." The minitorch sparked in her hand. "Lois has made us all set up retirement funds. She says if we act like we're going to survive this job, we'll start believing it."

"You don't."

"I've been here longer, and started because you offered me a gilded cage instead of a concrete one. I knew it would kill me when I stepped inside." She kept working. "Lois is infectious, you know. She's got the others thinking we can fix Torchwood. That we can grow old, have lives and families."

"Your time finished a while ago. The contract we had. You could walk away now." He couldn't stop the word "walk" in time, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Nope," she said, but there was a little smile as she did. "I'm here to see things through. I'd like to find out if she's right."

Johnson and Mickey were supposed to recertify Jack on his weapons training so he could go back out with them (a process he thought was ridiculous but Gwen had insisted), but they were out dealing with an elementary school which might have had an encounter with a force-growing alien device. Jack was more than happy to skip that assignment. He stayed with Tosh, letting her tell him what to do.

"Off to lunch," Gwen said at noon. "Coming?"

"No," said Tosh.

"I'll be by later," said Jack, and watched Gwen and Lois go. "You should eat something. Martha will blame me if you're overworked and underfed."

"She already does. I'll get something later."

"Promise?"

"Yes. Now hand me that microdriver."

Fifteen minutes later, they were finished. Tosh seemed pleased with the results. Jack would wait to see how it worked before celebrating. "Grab you something from the café?"

"Oh, fine. Tuna sandwich." She waved him off.

The café was busier this time of day. Jack spied Gwen and Lois across the room at a table with two other women. He could hear their laughter over the noise of the other diners, let it follow him through the line on the other side of the room. He figured he'd get Tosh her food on his way out so the bread didn't get moist; soggy tuna bread disgusted even Jack.

He brought his tray over towards the table where the girls were, pasting a coy grin on his features as he neared them. "Hello, ladies!" he said, taking them all in, and then he froze.

"Hi, Jack," said Gwen, and scooted to make room for him. "You remember Bren from Sunrise, yeah?" That was nice of her. Jack wasn't looking at Bren but nodded automatically at her. "This is their newest programmer."

Gwen was smiling kindly at her, was not cowering in fear or rage, or pulling her gun like Jack's mind screamed she should. Yet his last sight of her hadn't been in a metal bikini but in white lace, and that changed everything.

"Lisa Jones," she said, extending her hand.

VVVVV  
TBC  
VVVVV


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> VVVVV  
> Part Two  
> VVVVV

VVVVV  
Part Two  
VVVVV

Jack stared at the hand in front of him. Lisa, and of all the Lisas in the world this was the one he'd thought he'd never see again, had a careful smile that was already fading. Flirty Jack woke up at the sight of a beautiful woman, and after the awkward pause, he swept her hand up and kissed it.

"Captain Jack Harkness. Nice to meet you, Lisa Jones."

Her eyes opened at the name, and Bren leaned over. Jack heard: "The one I told you about."

"You run the cruise line," she said, but the delight in her voice didn't meet her eyes. She knew his name.

"Lisa just moved here from Paris," said Bren. She sighed wistfully.

"Where are you from?" Lois asked. "That's a London accent, yeah?"

Lisa nodded, her eyes still watching Jack. "My husband's from Cardiff. When I got the offer, we decided to move closer to his family."

"I should go," Jack said. "I was going to get Tosh some lunch."

"Stay!" said Bren, and scooted over. That made two spaces for Jack at a table where he had no intention of sitting. Gwen watched him curiously over her drink.

Lois cut in. "No rest for the wicked. We should be getting back too."

"Don't worry about it," Jack said too quickly, and then his savior came into the café in the unlikely guise of …

"That's where you all went!" said Mickey, his voice easily carrying over the bustle of the room.

Jack's smile came back as Mickey walked over, and he placed a friendly hand on Mickey's back. "Time to go," he said before Mickey could say hi. "Later, ladies." He kept hold of Mickey as they went back to the lunch line.

Someone said behind him, "Why are the good-looking ones always gay?"

"You have ten seconds to remove that hand."

"Not till we're out of sight."

"They've stopped watching."

"Okay, then." Jack dropped the hand.

"Under no circumstances am I ever to play your beard again, got me?" Mickey got into line and before Jack could mention, he picked up a tuna sandwich along with a roast beef. At Jack's look he said, "Toshiko likes tuna on Tuesdays."

"Good to know."

Jack went back to the office, let himself into the Hub. The third Hub. H3. He suspected Rhys' hand in the name. He went to his own office, closed the door, and rested his face in his hands.

They'd just moved. The change of address wouldn't be reflected in the systems yet unless he'd known to look. Which meant that any day, at any time, he could be walking down the street, or worse, walking down the hallway here, and the world would end suddenly with the rush of leathery wings.

Ah, dammit.

From outside, he heard Mickey come in and talk to Tosh, though he couldn't make out what they said. Johnson said something to Gwen a minute later; he must have walked right past her.

There was a tap on his door.

"Having a private moment," he said, hoping whoever it was would think he was in here jerking off instead of contemplating yet another fracture in the space-time continuum.

"No, you're not," Gwen said, letting herself in anyway.

"I could have been in the middle of some very delicate negotiations, you know."

"You're not delicate. And you're louder." She sat herself heavily in a chair. "What was that all about? You looked like you saw a ghost. Did you?"

There was no point in lying, at least on that account. "In my memory, she died. Badly."

"Then you should be glad that you're wrong. She's nice. We were talking about babies. She's got a little one at home, not two months old. Two older kids, too."

"They can't be very old."

"She didn't say. Her husband stays home with them. It's very modern." She pursed her lips. "Don't get that look. Just because you remember life before formula doesn't mean the rest of us have to live that way. Mams can work too."

"I know," he said, but his thoughts were distant now, trying to picture Ianto as a stay-at-home daddy, and it was far too easy. He'd have an exact way to measure out formula, and he'd iron the cloth diapers while giving the children pointed lectures about how proper potty training was in everyone's best interests.

"I'd love for Rhys to stay home with the baby," Gwen said. "He hates admitting it, but he loves cooking and cleaning and arranging time with people. But he likes his job, too."

"When the siren call of haulage beckons, who can resist?"

"You be nice. And that means to that Lisa, too. She likes you." Oh good.

"I'm always nice. I just don't think we'll be seeing much of each other." He tapped his head. "Too weird, seeing someone as a corpse when you look at them."

"Bloody Retcon." Gwen shivered. "Any of the rest of us dead in that brain of yours?"

He sat back. "Don't ask me. Not today."

When she was gone, he called Martha. As soon as she answered, he said, "I need your phone."

"And hello to you, too. You can't have it."

"Why?"

"'Cos I just called him for something and he's busy. He said someone's bollixed up the twenty-third century and he's fixing the timeline."

"Really?" And right after, "He said 'bollixed'?"

"Not a direct quote. I'll let you know when I get through again."

"Thanks, Martha."

VVVVV

They had to borrow the police range to recertify Jack on the weapons. The SUV they drove on the way over was different than the one he remembered. The original in this timeline had been stolen or blown up, and had been replaced with a sleek new model which didn't, he noticed, have their name stenciled on the side. Johnson parked it in the police station lot like a normal vehicle and placed a small placard in the window provided by their official liaison, PC Davidson.

"Why do we have a liaison with the police?" Jack had asked.

"Because then they don't make fun of us when we screw up, and sometimes they're useful," Gwen had replied.

Jack hadn't anticipated Mickey taking the lead on the weapons testing.

"Now this one, you have to wait for it to recharge five seconds between blasts. Packs a punch, but have a backup." Jack hadn't fired this particular gun before, and was surprised at the recoil, but more surprised at the small smoking cinders left of the target.

"Where'd we get this?"

"I showed you how to make it," said Mickey. "With a little trial and error."

"Nice." He sighted it in again. Mickey had clocked in time as one of the leaders of the resistance to the Cybermen in an alternate universe. It was one thing to know that, though, and another to watch the man be smoothly competent with an array of weapons that, when they first met, Jack would have sworn Mickey'd use to blow off his own ear first by accident.

Johnson let him use his Webley to hit the targets, then took over on the pistols. Jack had to disassemble, reassemble, load and fire each one in under twenty seconds. He made it, but he was close.

"You're done," she said as the last echo died away. "Welcome back to active duty, Captain."

"Thanks," he said, and holstered his own gun.

"Time to go hunting," Mickey said, his hand on his ear. "Weevils sighted downtown."

"Let's go," said Jack.

The rapport was interesting between Johnson and Mickey. Mickey was always there with a joke, a comment, something to relieve the tension, even as he subdued something that was more teeth than brains. Johnson didn't say much, keeping her eyes on the targets, playing tactical games to encircle their quarry, her economy of movement meaning she'd take them out with one blow. She also liked shooting them a little too much even for Jack's tastes.

As she had her pistol at the head of the last one, Jack had to stop her. "We take them back."

"Our holding cells will be full."

"Then we have an overcrowded prison. Leave it."

She glared at him, but put away her weapon. He was in charge, no matter how much she resented it. Very good to know.

VVVVV

He didn't sleep that night. He tried, but kept flashing on Lisa's death, or at least the death of the thing she'd become. Too hard to sleep when the words "You're the biggest monster of all" followed him inside his head, too tired to work when most of him wanted to get as far away from Cardiff as his legs and a credit card could take him.

He went to the café very early for coffee, and figured if he didn't eat lunch there and only ever went out the back ways, he might not have to run into Lisa often, and that was fine with him.

The morning was filled with Rift activity. Jack, Mickey and Johnson investigated a strange spike in immigration numbers Tosh had found, and tracked down a small but growing group of non-terrestrial humans who were using the Rift as their personal transport out of the lousy situation they were in five centuries from now.

Johnson suggested shooting them. Gwen suggested, over the comm, shoving them back into the Rift. Lois found a deserted island where they could live and uploaded the specs to the SUV. Jack said to their leader, "Look, you can emigrate to the future. You come here, and you'll mess up the past, and we can't let you do that."

The future humans decided on the island option, and Jack told Johnson she could shoot anyone who left it.

They got lunch out.

Back at the Hub, Jack was finishing up his report when Lois buzzed him. "Visitor to see you."

"I don't get visitors here."

"Come in through the hallway rather than the Hub."

Mystified, Jack went out the back and came into the H3 office through the main door.

"Lisa Jones. Twice in two days. People will talk."

She looked at Lois. "Thanks for paging him. You really have everyone in the building on your system?"

Lois beamed. "Just part of our dynamic innovation."

"Can I have a moment, Captain?" Lisa waited. "Perhaps back at your office?" She indicated the outer door, and Jack realised she thought he worked out of the cruise office. He'd be happy to go there, if he knew where it was.

"How about I buy you a coffee?"

"That'd be lovely."

She picked a table in the corner far away from the other handful of people in the café, and thanked him as he handed her the coffee. She took a sip and politely tried not to make a face.

"I've had better, too," he said.

"So. Captain Jack Harkness, hm?"

"That's me, reputation fully earned."

"Yvonne used to take your name in vain regularly, you know."

He laughed uneasily. "I'll bet. She hated my guts."

"Did you hate hers?"

"Never hate the incompetent. Not worth the effort." He took a long drink. "What else do you know?"

"If you're here, Three's here. Lois and Gwen?"

"You know better than to ask me the identities of my people."

"Not when you're paling around with them. Is that Mickey bloke one of you, or does he run the gay cruises you're pretending to operate?"

"You really need to stop asking questions. I'd hate to have to Retcon you. Bad for your milk supply. Trust me."

Lisa frowned. "I've still got my clearances. We weren't technically Torchwood in Paris, but we had our own work."

"Writing up reports on the French isn't Torchwood work."

"Fighting the mutant rats in the sewers was."

"Rats. Really."

"Two metres long with a chitinous exoskeleton. You ever try fighting off one of those with a baby in a Snugli and a stun gun with a low battery? I don't think."

"You took your baby into the _sewers_?"

"When our Callie was first born. We did our job. Had to. Anyway, I wasn't letting my husband go up against those things without me, and he wasn't going to let me go in without him."

Jack kept silent, not least because he remembered the times Lucia had taken Alice on a mission, and had left her in the car while bullseyeing a Weevil. She'd only objected when Jack did it, too.

"And that's not even mentioning the gargoyles. Those statues at Notre Dame aren't made up. They were supposed to be reminders."

"There are gargoyles in Paris?"

"Three tribes. They fight constantly. The Notre Dame lot are vicious." Lisa downed the rest of her coffee. "All I'm saying is, you can trust me. I know who you are, I know what you do. I can help."

"We're not hiring," he said, standing.

"I wasn't asking for a job. Just offering help."

"Forget about it," he said, not wanting to be harsh but certainly not wanting her to get the faintest idea that she might be welcome. "Forget about Torchwood. You don't work there anymore. Enjoy your life. It was bought dear."

He turned and walked away from her.

VVVVV

He could still Retcon her. Make her forget she saw him, poke a few convenient holes in her memory, rewrite her personal history to have a nice, big hole where Torchwood Three was concerned.

Gwen would probably object to this idea.

Jack sat at his desk contemplating the future. Would it be possible to remove Lisa's memories of his name? How often could Yvonne have yelled at him in absentia? He counted, just to amuse himself, and stopped when he got to the double digits. Honestly, he'd sent her some reports just to piss her off, so it shouldn't have been surprising.

Torchwood had been founded to thwart alien threats, including the threat Queen Victoria had thought the Doctor posed. Yvonne and her predecessors - some more so, some less - believed that Jack, as a Torchwood operative, should have been rather more forthcoming on details about their blue-boxed goal. They interviewed known companions of the Doctor, usually in secret, but Jack was proud to note that none of them talked more than to sing his praises, even the handful who ended up employed by the Institute trying to change things from the inside. He upheld that tradition, no matter how angry and upset he was at the Doctor.

Father figure? Idealised mate? Whatever. Jack would give a lot to be able to go back to traveling with the Doctor and Rose, to recapture that particular magic, but he hadn't waited over a century for the Doctor to come back out of some romantic or infantile dream.

Jack loved the Doctor because he was the Doctor. They all did. Even Mickey, though he had sadly been caught in that antiquated "one true love at a time" mindset, and had gotten the short end of the stick when the Doctor was around. There was less "the Doctor is the bees knees" and more "the Doctor stole my girlfriend." Mickey hadn't been there to interview after his trip with the Doctor, so he hadn't had the opportunity to tell Yvonne to piss off until after she was dead.

Jack pitied her, and that was all.

Lisa had known Yvonne, or more likely, had been subject to many of Yvonne's public rants on the topic of Why Captain Jack Harkness Is a Horse's Arse With Poor Personal Hygiene and Suspect Parentage. Editing her memories would be difficult without going all the way back to before her days at One.

He thought about Mickey again. Was Jack, and he hesitated to even put words around this thought, _jealous_ of Lisa? Was that why he was sitting here in a dim room wondering how much of her past to delete?

He'd saved her life. The Doctor would have saved Ianto with or without her, but Jack had asked him for Lisa too and he'd said yes. That made her Jack's responsibility, his care. He had to protect her, from himself if necessary.

Somehow.

VVVVV

Thursday morning, he went out for coffee and brought it back for everyone. Lois wasn't the only one who could anticipate everyone's needs, and anyway, it got him out of the office for a while. He really ought to have someone show him his flat. It was possible though unlikely he had a potted plant or a cat or something that needed tending, but more, he needed to be somewhere that didn't constantly remind him of the people and things he'd lost.

After breakfast, the street team took Lois out for some on-the-job training. They cleaned out a nest of small dinosaurs Gwen directed them towards, which the readout called "procompsognathus" but Mickey kept referring to as "compys"; Jack pictured him as that kid who at the age of five could remember the name of every known dinosaur but regularly forgot his chores and where he put his lunch money.

As they rounded up the last few, Jack told Lois, "Dinosaurs are more common time-travelers than more people think. They had more than one hundred thousand years to fall though cracks in space-time. But for whatever reason, most of them travel to the time of other dinosaurs. The paleontologists hate when that happens."

"Sometimes we send 'em back through ourselves," said Mickey. "When the Rift conditions are right."

"Yeah," said Jack. "That urban legend about the T-Rex skeleton wearing a wristwatch, the one they keep secretly in the basement of the British Museum?" Lois nodded, wide-eyed. "My watch."

Johnson said, "You're joking."

"I'll take you there sometime. My initials are engraved on the back. The head of Torchwood London at the time was livid."

Jack purposefully kept them out through lunch, though he let Mickey talk him into going back when he pointed out that Tosh was going to need reminding. "She never goes to that cafeteria. Some idiot architect thought it would be more posh with stairs."

Jack hadn't noticed the stairs. He'd never had to. "Mickey, how good are you with a hammer?"

"Better'n most."

"Liar," Johnson said. "You're going to build her a ramp?"

"Why not?" Jack said. "Do a good deed, make sure my people aren't left out of the local café. Sounds like an afternoon."

"She won't use it," she predicted, and said nothing more on the ride back as Lois took the opportunity to look up local and national laws on accessibility.

Tosh hadn't eaten, did manage a thank you to Mickey as, unasked, he brought her a cobb salad. ("Thursday special," he'd told Jack. "She likes to pretend she's dieting on Thursdays.") When Jack pestered Gwen, quietly, why she hadn't offered to get Tosh anything, she said she always offered, and Tosh always refused. "Honestly, I think Mickey just does it anyway so she won't have an excuse to say no."

"That's one reason." He perched on the edge of her desk and started playing with the papers there until she swatted his hands away.

"I sat with that Lisa today."

"How nice."

"Did you know her husband brings the baby to her at work every day so she can feed the poor dear?"

"I didn't need to know it, no."

"Their eldest is in nursery school, so he brings this double pram with the other two, neat as you please. Has to wait at the top of the stairs, though."

"Mickey and I were talking about that. We're putting in a ramp."

"That'll be good. Tosh will like it."

"I hope."

"So, about Lisa … "

"Why are we still talking about Lisa? I'm glad you have a friend to talk babies with, but my youngest is in her thirties."

"She's Torchwood. So's her husband."

"She told you that?" He rubbed his face with his hand. "Her husband's not. He got fired his first day. She got tossed too."

"Reassigned, both of them. To a satellite office in Paris. It was how they met. Can you imagine?"

_"Do you like France? I love France! Had a wonderful time there in the eighteenth century. Lovely place, France." The Doctor is in a manic phase again, which doesn't spread all the way to his eyes._

"Not really my kind of place."

The Doctor tells someone on the phone: "Transfer him to France. No, I don't care how."

And Jack knows Ianto shouldn't go there alone.

"Please tell me you didn't start sharing top-secret information with some woman you barely know over lunch."

"She asked me if I worked with you, and I gave her the cover story: work in the same building, get to know people, you do the cruises, and so on. Then she said she knew your name from her other job, from a while back, and that she thought some more people here might be working with you."

"So you spilled everything."

"Not everything! I'm not daft. But she knows enough, and so does that man of hers. Ianto, his name is. We got to talking properly after Brenda went back to the office."

"Did she tell you about the rats?"

"While he was wearing the Snugli and had the stun gun out while she was getting the explosives ready? Yeah."

That was a mental image he wasn't getting rid of anytime soon. "Gwen, we've met people from London before. There were twenty-seven survivors out of over eight hundred."

"Twenty-six."

"All shell-shocked and all badly trained by people who forgot what the job was supposed to be. We don't need their leftovers."

"They weren't in London when One went down. They've got the training, well, she does and he picked his up on the job. Jack, we need more people."

"No, we don't," he said, rising from his perch. "We've got six good people. That's more than we've had in years."

"We've had six ever since Emma joined," she said. "But you don't remember her."

He closed his mouth, didn't reply. She'd actually shot him for sleeping with someone he barely remembered?

"I'm going to be going on leave soon. I'll be back, but I'd feel better having more people here. It's easier going when we've got more."

"This isn't supposed to be an easy job. And it's not a job for people with kids. People die here."

Gwen pouted at him, and he tried not to let his eyes dart to where she'd already made room for the crib. "It doesn't have to be. You haven't even met her husband yet. He's a sweetheart."

_"What would you do to have him back? To have them both back?"_

Jack closes his eyes. "Anything."

"Drop it, Gwen. We're not taking them on. Final word. If I have to stuff them both so full of Retcon they don't remember their own names and ship them to Australia myself, I will. No new hires."

And he left before she could read his eyes.

Mickey was in fact useless with a hammer, but he could man a screwdriver, and Johnson swiped the hammer from Jack and did the nails herself. It took the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, and the manager of the café came out twice to complain about the mess and the noise until Lois handed him the printouts of his compliance violations re: accessibility, with a sweet smile and her finger hovered over the "Talk" button on her mobile to call the Assessor.

Jack had already liked Lois. He was starting to develop a healthy fear of her.

Taking Gwen's advice, they didn't mention the project to Tosh, or take her over to show off after they'd finished. She'd be embarrassed, and even a bit angry with them, and Jack, who'd done more than his share of hurting her pride in the past, didn't intend to do it again.

Instead, when they broke for dinner, he purposefully held back on drinks, and without looking at her, asked Tosh to go get him some coffee, going on with his report. She waited, staring at him. "Hurry up, will you?" he said.

He couldn't hear what she muttered, but she went out. Several minutes later, she came back to the office and thumped down his coffee beside him. "It's black. You can get your own mixins yourself."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

And nothing more was said about it.

VVVVV

Thursday night, Jack risked going back to his own flat. He had spare keys in his desk, and he glanced at his own employment record to get the address. Home, sweet random place to live this week.

He walked. It wasn't far.

When he unlocked the door, he wasn't sure what to expect. Surely if he had someone waiting for him at home, Gwen or someone would have mentioned it by now. No one was there. Good start. He flicked on the light, saw a small room with what was no doubt a rented couch, a stereo system but no television, a handful of CDs ranging from the 1930s through about 1970, a two burner stove, a sink with dishes mouldering in it, and in his fridge, an open carton of milk one day past its prime. His bedroom was small, though the bed was nicely big and rumpled. In the shower stall, he found his favorite soap, and a straight razor lay by the tiny sink. No plants, no cats, no photos, nothing to indicate who he was other than another tenant in a flat that had seen many men before and would see many more long after he moved out.

All his stuff, such as it had been, had been destroyed. Alice would have copies of some pictures: herself as a small child, Lucia, Steven. The handful of Steven's drawings he'd kept safely locked away had burned. Alice would have more, but they'd be more precious than gold to her now.

Damn. He'd thought he might drop those memories, that guilt, back at the Hub, but they'd followed him home. He supposed they always would.

He showered, then stretched out naked on his own bed.

Had this afternoon's work just been penance for his conscience? Try to help Tosh, sure, but it was really about not having to think for a few hours. Not much different from the sex, then, with that man with the gorgeous vermillion eyes and four hands last week (if such a phrase as "last week" could apply to the places he'd been lately) or that woman with the diamond hair before him. Just something to mark the time and forget the past, because time was all he had and his past just kept growing behind him like the shadow of a monstrous beast.

Sleep didn't happen Thursday night.

VVVVV

When Tosh came in, Jack pulled her aside. "I have a side project for you."

"Sure."

"I'd like you to go back through the Rift activity records for the week and see if you notice any patterns. Focus on spikes around noon to oneish. Keep tracking that for now. And Tosh, this is for me, not Gwen."

"I'll see what I can find," she said with a sigh. Tosh was bad with secrets.

Friday morning was payroll morning. One of Jack's biweekly jobs was to annoy and badger and finally order everyone to complete their timesheets so he could approve them and submit the packet to whoever it was at the Palace who rubberstamped and sent them back. That process took two weeks itself, and anyway, they were all on salary except for expenses, which were handled separately via some Byzantine process Lois was working on streamlining. So when Jack hit "Approve" on the last timesheet, the paycheques had usually just arrived by courier.

In theory, they were supposed to be mailed home. The Crown had heard about direct deposit and wanted nothing to do with it. Jack grabbed the stack and wandered out to the office, as he had since it had started to be his job back in 2000.

"Gwen Cooper!" he bellowed. "A note of thanks from the Queen!" He read her address quickly and handed her the cheque with a flourish. So they had bought that same house. He was glad, in a way. He'd liked the look of the place, even if a part of him would always wonder why Gwen had chosen as she did.

"Mickey Smith! A note of thanks from the Queen!" Mickey lived around the corner from Jack. Useful.

Mickey grabbed his cheque. "The Queen and me go way back," he said. "You can tell her from me she's welcome."

"Lois Habiba! A note of thanks from the Queen!"

Lois smiled and slipped it into her purse. Lois lived in a nice neighbourhood, new developments going in, lots of young people.

"Toshiko Sato! A note of thanks from the Queen!" Tosh had kept her flat.

"You don't have to do that every time, you know. Gwen never does when it's her turn."

"Gwen doesn't have my sense of theatrics."

"And we're glad," said Mickey.

Jack grabbed the next cheque, read the name and address, and stopped.

"Johnson?"

"What, no thanks from the Queen?"

Jack flipped the cheque over, showing her the address. "I know this address."

"Coffee break!" said Gwen. "On me. Everyone. Now."

Tosh, Gwen and Lois made for the door. Mickey stood back. "I want to watch this." Gwen grabbed one arm, Lois the other, and they forced him out.

Jack stood there watching Johnson.

"You should," she said. "Your cash bought the place."

"They all knew. They all knew that I didn't know. Why didn't someone tell me?"

"When you found out before, you threatened to throw me into a black hole in someone's attic in Ealing."

"It's a standard threat. Ask Joe."

"You threatened to blow off his kneecaps and balls, then you bought him a beer. He still thinks you're Alice's brother."

"He didn't need to know." Jack hadn't trusted him, even back then. Sometimes he hated being right about people. "You?"

"I already knew." She sighed. "This is Torchwood. We can't even do 'shagging the boss's daughter' normally, can we?"

"No."

_There's always a resistance, always an underground. Not many rumours reach them up on the _Valiant_, but Tish tells him the little she hears. Leo Jones is never captured, never killed, and Jack is certain he and his family are being kept somewhere safe. Five months into their not even remotely private hell, one of the Master's best construction centers is blown sky high in a job that has Lucia's signature written all over it. Jack spends the next several agonising days refusing to tell the Master why he's smiling in paternal pride._

"Come on," Johnson said, and she took his hand. Their private lift went all the way to the roof. She stepped out, and went to the ledge. He followed. "You think better on rooftops."

"So?"

"So I'd prefer your brain be working at peak capacity before you go off."

"I'm not upset. I'm confused."

"About what? Your daughter is genetically the least likely woman in Great Britain to be straight."

"Not that. I don't want to ask, 'Why you?' but … "

"Why me?" He nodded. "We just clicked. You know. After."

He swallowed. Alice was human. And he'd broken her heart. Of course she'd looked for some kind of comfort. Her mother was dead, her father was a monster. It made sense, even a crazier kind of sense knowing that Johnson had killed Jack several times. The little sleep he got at night was often broken by the memory of his body ripping apart from the inside, or the feel of concrete choking and suffocating him.

"I'm happy for you," he managed to say, dust still on his tongue and a pain deep in his belly that wasn't caused by the memory.

"You look like someone ran over your dog."

"You think?"

"As long as we're being chatty, she says she still hates you. She doesn't spit when she says your name anymore, so there may be some progress."

"Great." The lead weight in his stomach continued to lay there.

"She also says that if you come near the house, she'd like me to shoot you. I haven't promised, but if you do, I probably will just to keep the peace. Fair warning."

"Yeah." But he wouldn't go near her place, not ever again. It was too much, and he'd done too much wrong. "If it means anything to you, you've got my blessing."

"It doesn't. But thank you anyway." She pulled out a hip flask, impressive since her clothes had appeared skin tight. She took a swig and then offered it to him.

Jack took a long pull. It burned all the way down.

VVVVV

He went to lunch well after the others were back. Tosh had gotten her own, for once, with only a little prodding from Gwen, though she took it back to the Hub. Mickey, who'd been going to sit with the others, made an excuse and brought his back too. Subtlety wasn't his best trait. Jack made a reason to stay in his office until he heard Gwen's voice, and mentally counted out another half hour just in case.

As Jack sat in the cafeteria, the doors across the way opened, and a far too familiar face wedged his way through with a double pram. Jack dropped his fork, then darted his head looking for another exit. The fire exit was behind him, but would sound an alarm.

The pram made its way down the brand new ramp. Lisa was nowhere to be seen, but would no doubt meet them soon. Of course they had to be late today. He should've gone early with his team. He should've gone out. He should've left Wales and moved to China.

_They are dancing at Gwen's wedding, and as the song changes, he whispers in Jack's ear: "I know this ... thing we have doesn't mean much to you. But you might want to pretend it does, from time to time."_

Ianto scanned the room, looking for his wife. He stopped when he saw Jack, and a curious, confused expression crossed his face. Jack had to get out of there, fast.

He left his food and tray and hurried up the stairs on the far side, not making eye contact, even as Ianto said, "Wait!"

Jack ran, though he didn't have to, not with Ianto and the kids at the bottom of the ramp and a door in the way, and he went through Lois' outer office right to the lift. The roof was far enough away from everything, and he stayed there, no longer hungry, for over an hour, scanning the sky for leathery wings.

VVVVV

"I thought I only had to see you once a week." The argument hadn't worked on Lois or Gwen. It probably wouldn't work here either. He tried anyway.

"Normally you do. However, until you recover your lost memories, we should spend time trying to trigger your memory. Your Retcon drug can sometimes be overridden, you said."

"It usually can't."

"We'll try." Dr. Sheffield indicated the couch. Jack took the chair. "Tell me how your week has been."

I've seen a dozen ghosts walking around this week, including my ex-lover, who's in the building every day with his wife and kids. My daughter, who hates me for killing her son, is sleeping with one of my employees, who has a habit of killing me. I can't sleep. My job has been taken over by a committee who seems to do things better than I ever did. It's possible I'm going mad.

"Fine."

"No problems with your team? Smooth transition back?"

"Yes."

"I see."

"How long do we have to talk?"

"Until your hour is done. We can talk about something other than work, if you'd like."

"Okay."

The doctor flipped a page of his notes. "We haven't talked about your sex addiction in a while."

"I don't have a sex addiction!"

"Really?" Dr. Sheffield read from his paper: "You've had sex with members of thirty-seven different species, including five cats."

"The cats were sentient."

"So you said. To continue, you have had sex with more humans than you yourself could count, although you blame alcohol and narcotics for your lack of some memories, four robots, and a blue police box."

Jack blinked. "I told you I had sex with the TARDIS?"

"About three hundred metres from this spot, you said. Is that bringing back any memories?"

"Yeah, but I'm not sharing them." The Doctor had taken the Mayor of Cardiff out for her last supper, Rose and Mickey had gone off, presumably to shag, and Jack had been alone with the single most advanced piece of artificial intelligence ever constructed. The TARDIS may have given its heart entirely to the Doctor, but it, and Rose, had loved Jack enough to make the mistake of giving him eternal life.

"You mentioned there was sex rehab available in the 51st century."

"It's overrated."

"You know it's not healthy to respond to everything by shooting at or sleeping with it."

"Served me well so far."

VVVVV

Jack woke from his half-doze, the best he could do these days, and kissed the bare shoulder that lay resting right by his lips. The shoulder moved.

"And that," said Dr. Sheffield - Jack probably ought to call him Peter now - "was an example of an inappropriate use of sex as a coping mechanism."

"Mine or yours?"

"Doesn't matter. Give me a bit more blanket, will you?" Jack gave him more blanket, taking the chance to kiss him again. They'd made it to the spare sleeping quarters. His own place would have been far better suited, and if they continued, he'd suggest pulling on clothes long enough to get there.

Peter broke off the kiss. "This severely undercuts my ability to be your therapist in the future. I won't be able to keep my detachment." He kissed Jack back thoughtfully. "Also, it shoots my credibility straight to hell. I could be brought up on charges with the board."

A few pleasant minutes later, Jack said, "I could arrange for you to forget the last twelve hours."

"That'd be a pity," he said, voice thready from what Jack's hands and mouth were doing. "Still, it's for the greater good. I'm honestly the best person to keep working with your team and I'd hate to have to end that."

"Mm hm."

"Maybe we could wait another hour."

"Mm hm."

VVVVV

Jack waited until Peter woke from his Retcon-induced nap to tell him about the mild concussion he'd suffered tripping over the cables in the Hub. He called a cab, told him to stay awake for a bit, and resisted the urge to kiss him goodnight. No use breaking the amnesia that quickly.

He went back inside, but it was too quiet and he was wide awake. He went to the basement and checked on their prisoners: food, water, and for some reason, soaps. Their new holding facility had a television screen tuned to a satellite channel showing soap operas twenty-four hours a day. The Weevils would sit quietly in their cells watching the romantic misadventures of beautiful people in imaginary towns all day and all night, and be perfectly tame except during the commercial breaks. Gwen said Emma had figured it out, and she'd gotten that same clouded look she always did when talking about Emma.

"Good job, Cowell," Jack said quietly, as he closed and locked the door behind himself. The Weevils didn't stir.

Their basement, at least the part where their private lift went, connected to some of the older tunnels from beneath the Hub. Most of the sub-basements had collapsed, but a few had survived worse earthquakes than even the bomb in Jack's gut could have provided. Some of their archives were intact, if now hopelessly incomplete. He spent some time looking through files from the 1920s, waxing nostalgic as he read the names of friends and coworkers long dead.

In Jack's original timeline, he'd made Ianto and the archivists before him scan everything to digital whenever they'd had down time, or when he was angry with them. Ianto had done a lot of scanning after the death of the Cyberman who wasn't Lisa. He wondered if he'd punished Eugene the same way, if they'd preserved their records here. He'd hate to be the only repository of memory regarding the good people who'd worked in Torchwood Three over the last century.

Hours later, he dragged himself back upstairs. Time to start the day. Lois would already have brought in breakfast, they could go over the events for the day, he could take her out again to show her more of the ropes, and …

"Tosh. Where is everyone?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's almost eight."

"Yes?"

"In the morning. People are supposed to be here now."

"It's Saturday."

"And?"

They stared at each other, clearly speaking two different languages.

"Today is Saturday," Tosh said slowly. "It's called a 'week-end.'"

"So?"

"Everything is being monitored, everyone has a comm ready if we need them for an emergency."

"You're here."

"Well, someone handed me an extra project yesterday, didn't he? Anyway, I like it here on the weekends. I can get more done."

He leaned up against the rack holding her computer. "Really?"

"Really." She reset her glasses, an action he'd always found adorable. "Anyway, Gwen and I are the only ones left from the old days. She needs her rest. I can stay here, keep an eye on things. The others don't have to, though they drop in during the day if they're around."

"So we have a day off?" He rolled the idea around in his head.

"If we want. Sundays too, though to be frank, I've never seen a week go by yet without something popping up to bring us back in anyway. We still have to apply for permission to be out of range for more than overnight."

"Good."

"Speaking of overnight." Her lips twitched, hiding a grin.

"Ah. I took care of that."

"What'd you put as the reason on the Retcon log? 'Bad shag?'"

"I'm offended. It was a fantastic shag. I put that Dr. Sheffield," it was hard to call him that again but Jack would adjust, "saw something he shouldn't have."

"Honest, but non-descriptive."

"I could get more descriptive."

"Please don't," she said, putting up a hand. "I think we've all seen you naked at least once. Some of us would prefer not to do so again."

"You're missing out."

"I'll live with that."

VVVVV

The café had minimal service on weekends, so Jack brought back burgers for the two of them, after having confirmed with Tosh that the place he was going didn't freak her out in a "going to get Hepatitis" sort of way.

He considered running a fake alert to drill the team and check their response time. "Don't cry wolf," Tosh said, watching him type in a few scenarios and delete them.

"Can I cry Bad Wolf?"

"No. If you're bored, go for a walk. Or go find a date."

"About that. No one's mentioned, and again, bad memory. Am I seeing someone?"

She paused, and got a pained look on her face. Grief? No, exasperation. "You're always seeing someone. Several someones if you can arrange it. Nothing serious, if that's what you mean."

"No one on the team."

"Not currently. I think you set your sights on Lois until she started quoting the life expectancies of your previous conquests."

"That's cold." Anyway, surely Estelle and Lucia would have raised that average several years. But then, anything after their split-ups might not have counted.

_"You use people up, Jack," Lucia says, folding their daughter's tiny clothes to pack them. Jack has been practising their new names but they feel wrong in his mouth. "You're like a fire, consuming as you go. It's too much for one person."_

She says much more, and so does he, and then they're both shouting, and for once the shouting doesn't lead to sex. That comes later, after he helps them settle into the new house, and she says she forgives him, but he doesn't believe her.

"I wasn't there," Tosh said. "Mickey said it was pretty funny. Did you really sleep with his girlfriend?"

"I wouldn't say much sleep was involved."

She rolled her eyes. Definitely exasperation.

VVVVV

Around six, Tosh intercepted a police report about a run-in with unusual-looking gang members. Jack was about to sound the alarm, but Tosh batted his hand away and dialed a number.

"Andy?"

"Hi, Tosh," said PC Andy's voice over the speaker. "Heard that, didja?"

"Do we need to come in on this?"

"I'll keep an eye open. I think this lot is just wearing masks."

"Again?"

"It's the new thing. Make the cops think you're an alien."

"Idiots."

"I'll call you if there's a prob."

"Thanks, Andy."

She disconnected, sat back and smiled at Jack. "Now wouldn't you have felt silly showing up guns blazing over a bunch of hoodlums in rubber masks?"

"No. We should go make sure."

"Andy'll keep us updated. It's his job."

Jack grumbled, but went back to his office.

VVVVV

Around ten, he noticed he'd been reading the archives for much longer than he'd intended. Some of their records had made it online and had been preserved off-site, and he was looking for gaps.

There was a polite cough at the door. "Toshiko. I thought you'd gone home already."

"I'm about to. But I wanted to let you know about the status of one of my projects."

"Did you see the Rift spikes?"

"No. I'll keep watching, but activity looks normal around that time of day."

He wasn't sure if that was good news or bad news. If there was going to be an instability, surely it would show up in the Rift first, and it ought to be trembling every time Ianto was in the building. "Check two o'clock yesterday."

"There's nothing, Jack."

"Fine. Thanks. You can go home."

"That wasn't the project I meant."

She came the rest of the way in, settling across from him. The dim light of his lamp - he hated the overhead fluorescents - shone golden on her face, making her look older. "I've been looking into who might have Retconned you. I checked all the records, all the CCTV files, nothing. Then I tried to do it the proper way. Who had the means, motive, opportunity. Since all of our supply is spoken for, that means either we had some lost during the loss of the Hub, or someone's manufacturing more. But not only is the formula proprietary, the ingredients are highly selective and of alien origin.

"They'd have to be making it in such a quantity to have wiped your brain for such a long time, and of a quality that it didn't kill you, though obviously that's not a limiting factor, or scramble your brain. There's only person who could have done that."

"Me."

"You."

He sat back in his chair. She wasn't accusing him. She was certain.

"I wasn't Retconned."

"Why have you been lying to us? What are you trying to pull?" Tosh was angry now. She held her voice firm, but he could hear the tones behind them. "You pretended … "

"I didn't pretend. I honestly don't know what's happened the last three or four years. Not here."

"Jack … "

"I changed time." Horror crossed her face. "The Doctor changed time. For me." He shook his head. "Not for me. For someone he actually loved." That sounded petulant even in his own ears. The Doctor had proven how much he loved Jack, fighting for him when Jack had given up on himself. "I just helped."

"Oh my God."

"This is not the world I remember. People died in my timeline who are alive now. People lived in my timeline who died here."

He knew she would ask before she said, "Owen?"

"He died in mine, too. So did you."

"Oh." She closed her eyes. "You brought me back. Like this."

"Different things were set in motion. One thread out of place, everything didn't unravel, but it made another pattern."

"Meaning?"

"You were standing in a different place when Gray shot you. Martha wasn't working with us in my timeline. She saved you here."

"She shouldn't have." A tear rolled down her cheek, and she brushed it away absently.

"I'm glad she did." He leaned forward to take her hand, rub it tenderly. "I missed you."

"I'd think you of all people would understand," she said. "You're the one who always has to go on, survive the people you love. Don't you wish you could just stop?"

"All the time."

"That's why you changed things, isn't it? For someone you loved? Because you couldn't deal with saying goodbye."

"It wasn't exactly like that. But yes." He sighed. "The Doctor did me a favor, gave me a gift. Ten more minutes with the people I most needed to say goodbye to. I said goodbye to you. Do you remember me stopping by your place with flowers out of the blue one night? Lilies, I think they were." She nodded. "I'm glad. I'm glad that happened here."

"Did you say goodbye to Owen?"

"Yeah."

"Good. And your … friend?"

"His mother knew the Doctor a long time ago. She asked him … She didn't know what she was asking him."

"And now everything is changed."

"Some things. Not everything. I didn't think about it at the time. The Doctor must have, but I was barely thinking. Too much grief." He spread a smile that had no humour on his face. "You know, I could really use a drink."

"I wouldn't mind one. It's not every day I toast coming back from the dead."

Jack rattled up two glasses and half a bottle of whisky from where he'd spied it in his desk. Dr. Sheffield wouldn't like to hear about that, so Jack wouldn't tell him.

"Cheers."

"Cheers."

Tosh coughed around her drink. "You drink this?"

"Apparently."

"So," she said, setting the glass down beside her. "You changed time. The Doctor did, anyway. Isn't that forbidden?"

"It can be done. Hell, he does it all the time, really. Any time he picks up someone and drops them off somewhere or sometime they don't belong, he changes time. Whenever he shows up with alien tech and changes what would otherwise have happened, he changes time."

"You said the penalty for that is bad."

"If it's done wrong, winged monsters come and eat reality. I'd call that bad."

"And yet you did it anyway."

"Did I mention I wasn't thinking well at the time?"

"That's why you're having me monitor the Rift. Looking for monsters?"

"Basically."

"At lunchtime?"

He took a swallow. "I have reason to believe lunch is a particularly unstable time in Cardiff, yes."

"Why?"

"I can't say."

"You already said. You broke the rules of time and space for some man you were shagging. Yes?"

"Maybe."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

"So why are the monsters so interested in your lunch habits?"

"Because. The person I changed time for comes to the cafeteria every day to have lunch with his wife, who works on the second floor. The Doctor saved him, and I asked for her life too because I'm an idiot."

"You're a romantic."

"Same thing. Anyway, I had my ten minutes. Six hundred seconds. All gone now. All spent. I don't get more time with him, not to say hi, not to introduce myself since he'll have no idea who I am anyway, not to tell him how crazy I've been since I lost him or how much he meant to me, not anything. And if I try, hell, if I bump into him by accident as he's bringing the kids over, the monsters come, and everything shatters, and if I am very, very lucky, all that means is that the timeline resets and I lose him, and you, and everything all over again. But I'm not very lucky, and I think it will be much worse."

Tosh played with her glass, then took a long, gulping drink. "So that's all, then. End of the world. I thought it would be something serious."

"Don't play."

She smirked. "You're an idiot."

"Thanks."

"No, I mean it. You're a complete moron."

"Tell me how you really feel, Tosh," he said, folding his arms uncomfortably.

"Let me get this clear. You had this boyfriend and he died and you had your ten minutes from the Doctor to say goodbye and then you changed time a bit so he never died."

"Something like that."

"And now you think flying monsters will attack us all if you say hello."

"That's how it works, yes."

"Because you already said goodbye, and the Doctor said you only had ten minutes."

"Yeah."

"How long have you and I been talking in this room?"

Instinct made Jack look at his watch before he caught on. "You."

"You said goodbye to me. And here I am. No monsters."

"I could kiss you."

"Please do. I haven't had a good snog in a while." He walked around the desk and kissed her solidly. "Mmm. Nice."

"I could be nicer."

"Don't ruin the moment."

"Okay." He sat back down, but his mind was already miles away.

"The world doesn't revolve around you, Jack Harkness. Only you would have the massive ego to think it did."

"It was a valid fear! This has happened before." Lecture after lecture from the Time Agency. Rose, weeping softly into his shoulder, whispering how she held her dad as he died.

"You get a second chance. You don't have to keep moping around here like a widow."

"Neither do you."

She gasped like he'd struck her. "That's unfair."

"You're right. I get grief. I get how hard it is to move on." He took her hand again. "But you get a second chance, too, this time around."

"Some chance." She looked down at her chair. "Some days, I think I'd rather have my fate from your timeline."

"I can think of someone who'd love to change your mind."

Their eyes met. "He's a kid," she said. "A sweet kid."

"He's older than Tommy."

She flinched again. "Let it never be said you ever resisted the low blows."

"Sorry. I'm not playing yenta. Your life is yours to work out. I'm just pointing out there's someone who seems to spend a lot of time thinking about what you want and what you'd like, and being there for you."

"Did he tell you that he carried me out of the Hub when you blew up?"

"No."

"I hated him for it. Eugene died in there. I should have died. But Mickey grabbed me up and took me out of there, and didn't expect thanks or anything. He just did it."

"That's who he is. He crossed universes to help his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend because she needed him to. Twice."

"Does anyone travel with the Doctor and not come out of it mental?"

He gave the question honest consideration, but he'd made a study of the other Wendys. "No."

"I'm not like you. I used to think I needed other people to define me. I don't anymore."

"I don't need people to define me."

"Please. Your self-worth is directly tied to the number of people you've shagged this month. You wrap your entire life around the people in this office. You broke time for someone you couldn't bear to let go. You don't have a brain, so you use me, and since you lack a conscience, you use Gwen. You are all about people."

_"I need someone to act as my conscience. A companion, if you will. And I think you're the man for the job."_

Jack laughs without humour. "If you think that, you're even crazier than I thought."

"Oh, I am. Have no doubt. But to show good faith, I'd like to offer you a gift. Something nice. Perhaps something that you've recently lost."

Jack's mouth goes dry.

"Gwen is not my conscience."

"Really? What about the 456, then?"

He sat back roughly. "I don't want to talk about the 456."

"I know. You're going to carry that guilt forever. Gwen at least gets to let go of hers when she dies."

Yeah. "Gwen was there?"

"Of course Gwen was there. She was the one who found that little girl. God alone knows what you'd've done if she hadn't. Actually, I take that back. We all know what you would've done."

His lips felt numb, like when he drowned. "Tosh, what little girl?"

"The girl from the children's hospital. Madeleine. She had leukemia, Gwen fed her a story about being a hero, saving the world." Tosh emptied her glass, and only then caught the shock on his face. "Jack?"

"Madeleine?"

"You were about to use another child," she said, "when Gwen came." She didn't meet his eyes. "Oh, Jack. You didn't. You didn't, really?" She drifted her gaze up hopefully.

"Alice hates me."

"Of course she hates you. You were ten seconds away from killing her son. If Gwen hadn't stopped you, you would have." She looked away. "I told myself you wouldn't have gone through with it. You would have stopped yourself."

"Alice knows me too well." He had to approach this carefully. Too much, too soon, and he was sure the universe would notice and spring back, and the least he'd have to worry about would be the monsters, but the most he could gain … "Steven's alive?"

She nodded. "I thought you knew. We all thought you knew. Lois gave you the report. You didn't read it?"

He shook his head. "I have to go. I have to see him."

"It's late, you've been drinking, and you're not welcome there."

"Don't care." He grabbed his coat, bent over and kissed her again. "I am never going to be able to thank you enough."

"Thank me by not getting killed again. Lois has been complaining about the dry cleaner."

He took the SUV. No doubt he had a car here somewhere, but he wanted to go, to get there, and he didn't want to take the time to sort out keys he might or might not have. The radio was on, and he didn't know the songs but sang along loudly anyway. The world was a new place, his grandson was alive, it was Saturday night, and everything was going to be okay.

He parked on the street outside the house and bounded up to the front door. He knocked hard. "Alice! I need to come in!"

The house was dark, and then lights flickered on from upstairs. A dark form came down the stairs as Jack stamped on the front step. "Look, I know you're mad."

The door opened. Johnson stood there, hair mussed, in a dressing gown and not much else. Alice was walking down the stairs, rage on her face.

"I told you … "

"I have to see Steven. Just for a minute."

"Get out."

He went to push past Johnson, who refused to move. "This isn't a good time," she said in a low voice.

"I'll go again as soon as I see him. Please."

Johnson turned back to Alice, who nodded once. Johnson sighed. "Sorry." She pulled her gun and before he could move, she shot him in the head.

VVVVV  
TBC  
VVVVV


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> VVVVV  
> Part Three  
> VVVVV

VVVVV  
Part Three  
VVVVV

Jack gasped back to life and took in his bearings. Dead. Formerly dead. Inside. House. Alice's house. Hall light in his eyes. Head. He raised a hand and poked at his forehead. No hole left.

"Why did you bring me inside?"

"I didn't want to have to explain you to the neighbours. Now get out." Alice stood over him, still angry. Johnson stood back. She had her gun out, though for once she looked unhappy about that fact.

Jack sat up carefully. His clothes weren't as messy as they could be had she shot him in the chest. Lois must have nagged her, too.

There was a rustle at the top of the stairs. Steven huddled, sleepy and confused, awakened by the gunshot. Jack watched him as he rubbed his eyes and yawned.

"I'll go," he said. "Johnson?"

"Hm?"

"See you Monday. Alice, love as always." He looked up the stairs. "See you later, Steven."

Steven yawned again. Jack let himself out.

The streetlights were bright here, but above him he saw only stars.

VVVVV

He puttered around his flat most of the night, taking a catnap in the living room to a Glenn Miller CD on repeat. Morning found him with a sore neck and a lighter heart than he'd had in months.

Sunday was quiet. Tosh didn't come in at all, no activity on the monitors. Jack took the time to go through more paperwork, including the report on the 456.

He spent the rest of the day occupied, first at the florist's, then driving from place to place. Emma's and Eugene's graves were empty. Emma was laid to rest in a UNIT vault somewhere, because their freezers were gone. Eugene had been obliterated. He left them flowers anyway. "Thanks," he said to each. "I'm sorry," he added, for Emma, who'd lived in the old timeline under another name but died in this one wearing her own.

Lucia's grave was also empty, which meant she was entombed forever beneath the Hub in the company of every Torchwood agent who'd left a body behind. He sat for a long time with her headstone anyway, tidying up the site, choosing not to chat. Dead was dead, and there was nothing beyond except what moved in the darkness.

The last grave was harder to find. The girl's last name, listed in the report, didn't give him a clue of her whereabouts now, and it had taken some time on the computer for Jack to track her down. When he reached the cemetery, he walked until he saw a grave piled with flowers and toys. His arm dropped. Hundreds of cards littered the site, as did fresh and wilted daisies and lilies and roses. Teddy bears in every color. He plucked one card from the ground. "Thank you, Maddy. Trissa Stone and her mom and dad." The handwriting was too neat to be a child's.

Parents. Their children had been ripped from their arms, almost sent to a fate worse than death, and a little girl Gwen had chosen had taken their place, had taken Steven's place. Jack set down his flowers with the rest.

"I promise," he said, and that was all. "I promise."

VVVVV

Monday morning, he texted Lois not to bother and got breakfast for everyone himself. The Rift was still quiet, so the agendas were light. Lois also handed out a sheet: "List of Acceptable Reasons to Kill JH."

"Excuse me?" Jack said, scanning the list. "Okay, I can see 'Possessed by alien consciousness.'"

"In your case, 'Acting strangely as though possessed by alien' is also a good reason."

"I disagree."

"You'll get better."

"'Trying to take over planet?'" Gwen asked. "He hasn't done that yet. Has he?"

"It's good to be prepared. Be sure to look at the unacceptable reasons list, please."

Jack read. "Because you're angry with him." "Because your significant other(s) is/are angry with him." "You want to open the Rift for any purpose." "You want to use his retinal print or fingerprints." "You want to take over the planet."

"Are these suspension-worthy offenses?" Johnson asked. "Just out of curiosity."

Lois said, "That's up to management."

Jack said, "Management says stop shooting me and we'll let it go."

"I avoided his clothes."

"Thank you," said Lois.

VVVVV

They spent the morning working in the remains of the archives, moving files up into the main part of the building while Gwen and Tosh worked on recreating their filing system. Jack found a sledgehammer and made an educated guess on the location of the next vault. Two hours later, he broke through to a collapsed room. He and Mickey managed to pull out three filing cabinets that were only partially crushed. Jack was pleased until they got one open and found a drawer full of nothing but receipts for Weevil food.

"Lunch," said Gwen over the comm at a bit past noon. Jack bounded up from where he'd been sitting on the floor, heart pounding. He'd been thinking about this since Saturday night. Every day, Monday through Friday and even the occasional weekend when Lisa would have to work, he'd have the chance to see Ianto again. Gwen wasn't talking him into hiring him or Lisa; the Doctor had been clear that Torchwood was dangerous, that Jack himself was dangerous. He could say hello, though, and chat over coffee, and listen to Ianto's voice again, his laugh. Jack would allow himself that.

Jack was wearing one of his best shirts today, though it had gone dusty from the files. He could change, but then he'd have to face questions about why he was trying to smarten up before going to the cafeteria.

As the lift hit the office level, Jack smelled pizza. "I thought … "

"Monday's pizza day," Tosh said, and she handed him a plate. "Unless you have something better to do?" She caught his eye.

"No," he said, tugging at his grimy shirt. "Pizza. Yum."

VVVVV

He found excuses to go for coffee, to grab snacks, to walk through the corridors. Sunrise Software was across the hall from Enfys Cruises, though the latter's door was locked. Jack paced outside the software company's door until he felt ridiculous.

Gwen's voice spat in his ear: "Play time's over. We've got an alien sighting."

Grateful for the distraction, Jack went back to work.

VVVVV

Tuesday morning, he spent extra time getting ready in his shower and after, choosing just the right shirt to show off his eyes, brushing his teeth after coffee at home so he wouldn't be going around with java breath. He was primping.

_"Are you fixing your hair?" Jack teases him, slipping up behind him in the mirror._

"Just because you run a soapy hand over your head and call that shampoo does not mean I can't make myself look presentable for work."

Just for that, Jack ruffles his hair, and Ianto grumbles at him, working on his tie. He's distracted, as is Jack's intent, and messes up the knot. Jack considers grabbing the tie off his neck and using it for something much more entertaining, but the reflected glare in the mirror says he oughtn't.

He checked his hair one more time, and headed for the office.

Rift calls, all morning long, and into the afternoon. He gripped the steering wheel unhappily as Gwen called them from one mission to the next, finally splitting the team. Jack took Lois with him, because Gwen figured his experience and her lack of same would even out.

"Are you all right?" Lois asked, as Jack swore roundly at a blowfish who was giving them grief. He'd missed the weapon the 'fish was carrying and nearly gotten scorched for his trouble.

"Fine." He checked his watch. Three PM. "Low blood sugar."

"We'll have an early tea," she said. "As soon as we deal with this fellow." She checked the settings on the taser he'd allowed her, but her brow was furrowed. Lois really wasn't a weapons sort of woman. She could fight viciously with paper both real and electronic; firearms left her cold.

"Let me," he said, and took it from her with a friendly squeeze of her hand, fixing the charge. Still holding her hand, he helped her fire. "Just like that."

"Thanks."

Over a quick snack, he asked her about what had brought her to Torchwood. "Fuzzy memory," he said. "Remind me."

"I was working as a temp for Mr. Frobisher," she said, and took a sip of her tea. He'd finally read the report. Mr. Frobisher and his family had not been lucky in this timeline, either. "I met up with Gwen and Rhys while they were on the run, helped them get to you."

"Gwen offered you the job."

"When it all was said and done. You were both pretty broken up about, well, everything. You took some time away. She did, too, not as long. When she did, we got things organised, Gwen and me and Tosh and Mickey. Set up the new Hub. Johnson helped us go through the things they'd recovered from the blast. When you got back, you brought her on."

"The new team."

"It's Torchwood. We always go on. That's what you said."

"We always do."

VVVVV

Tuesday night, he broke down and looked up their current address. They were renting a place, had feelers out (that took a lot more digging) for house, had already purchased a dark blue minivan. "I was half-right," he said to himself. Now he'd know what vehicle to be watching for on the streets, in the parking lot. He wrote down the name of the nursery school Callie Jones attended, the closest parks to their home, child-friendly restaurants nearby.

Lois would be sure to tell him when he'd crossed over the line to break local stalking laws, so he had no intention of letting her know about his activities. To be safe, he made all his notes in a language that wouldn't be around for another twelve centuries or so.

Anyway, he had no intention of driving over to their rental. He wasn't the "radio over his head playing pop songs" type. Besides, Ianto hated pop music.

Jack just liked to know.

He spent most of the night working on more of the sub-basement by himself. The collapsed room bordered another vault. He spent hours moving rubble away from the most likely-looking wall, and a few more trying to make holes into the next room. He wasn't looking for anything in particular, and he couldn't even tell what level they were in to figure out what would be nearby. He simply wanted to see what he could still find that hadn't been burned, crushed, flooded, confiscated or stolen. He'd rebuild their past, if he could.

He hefted. He sweated. He worked. It filled the hours until he fell into the spare bed and slept fitfully for a short slice of the night.

VVVVV

Wednesday was his day.

The morning was slow. Johnson took the one call they had, wanting some alone time. Jack let her go. Gwen had a doctor's appointment. She warned him over the phone not to cause trouble or break anything permanent while she was out. He said he'd try. Instead, he helped Tosh and Mickey do more wiring. Gwen wanted to extend their internal CCTV to the new rooms Jack had been opening, in case something they managed to wake up down there decided to come through and pay them a visit. Jack was pretty sure everything down there was dead and not coming back, but he wouldn't bet someone else's life on it, and anyway, it gave him more reasons to keep excavating in his spare time.

Johnson and Gwen were still out at lunchtime, and Jack had no intention of waiting. "Time for a break," he announced with far more cheer than needed.

"I want to finish up here," Tosh said. "You go ahead."

"I'll help," Mickey said. "It'll get done faster. You go on, mate. Lois hates eating alone."

Jack clapped Mickey on the shoulder. "Meet us there."

He made an exaggerated bow to Lois in the office. "Lunch, Miss Habiba?"

"Delighted, Captain Harkness." She got her purse and took his arm.

In the café, he glanced around casually and spotted the table he wanted. Lois didn't need persuading, as she had been almost as happy as Gwen to spend her lunch breaks cooing over babies, and sure enough, there was a baby to be cooed over.

"May we join you?" Jack asked, and sat down next to one of his favorite people in the universe without waiting for a response. Lois smiled shyly and sat down across from them.

"Hello," she said. "Lisa already off?"

"Yup," said Ianto, cuddling a little boy on his lap who couldn't have been more than a year old.

Bren said, "Ianto, this is … "

"Captain Jack Harkness," Jack said, grabbing his hand and shaking it. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. … ?"

"Jones. Ianto Jones." His eyes sparkled, and of course Lisa must have told him about their conversation. "Lisa tells me you run a gay cruise line."

"Looking to take a holiday?"

"Booked solid right now, sorry. Maybe next week?"

"I'll pencil you into my calendar."

"I can't wait."

It was so easy to fall into their pattern. Ianto had been a flirt, even back in the old days, before Jack had known half of it was to keep him from guessing what was in the basement. He had to be careful not to go so far yet, to layer in things his Ianto would have known and found funny or sexy or both.

"So who's this chap?" Jack asked, poking at his food as he remembered he was supposed to be eating.

"This is Kyle. Kyle, can you say hi?" He rubbed his son's back. "Say hi." The toddler stared at him wide-eyed, then grabbed a chip off his father's tray and tried to cram it into his mouth.

Bren cooed, as if on cue. "What a dearie!" She made more gooey noises, which sent the child even more wide-eyed and ducking for cover in Ianto's chambray shirt. "Lois, love, where's Gwen today?"

"Had to see the doctor. She'll start her weekly visits soon."

"Weekly?" said Jack. He hadn't been involved in much of the medical side of Lucia's pregnancy, hadn't even been allowed in the room when Alice had been born.

"She'll have to go on leave soon," said Bren. "She can't have much stress this late."

As opposed to running for her life, almost getting blown up, and shooting people during her first trimester, Jack supposed. Gwen had mentioned leave, and also how much stress she was under.

"We've tried to keep her workload light," Lois said, and dabbed her mouth with her napkin.

"That's good," Ianto said. "Hopefully your boss will be understanding, not make her work late, or do anything too dangerous."

"I thought Gwen was the boss," Bren said.

"My mistake. I could've sworn she'd mentioned a pig-headed employer who didn't know his bottom from an alligator." Bottom? Oh. Little kid learning to talk. No swearing. Jack suddenly wondered how many swear words he could teach the kid in an hour. He'd managed almost three dozen with Alice one very boring Sunday.

"That's corporate," Lois said. "You know how it goes."

"Yeah," said Jack. "One day, they're sending memos on how they want reports organised alphabetically by date, the next they're overrun by Cyb … " he paused, "cyber crime." At Bren's confused look, he added, "So I've heard."

"All done," came Lisa's voice from behind him, and he and Ianto both turned around at once. She carried the tiniest bundle he'd ever seen huddled against her red blouse. The baby really was new.

"Could you?" Ianto held Kyle out to Bren, who made more indistinct noises while Ianto took the baby from Lisa. He kissed Lisa on the cheek. "That was fast."

"She fell asleep. You're going to have to come back in a few hours."

"All right." He tucked her into the stroller seat, then plucked Kyle from Bren's arms. "Thank you." Kyle was less easily buckled in, demanding his mother instead. Jack watched, a little fascinated, a little horrified, completely forgetting to eat. This was another world to him, yet Ianto moved in it as easily as a dolphin in water.

"Don't normally see you here," Lisa said, noticing Jack at last.

"I'm trying to be more social. Lois says it's good for me."

"That reminds me," said Lois. "I should make another list."

"Fantastic." And now Kyle was buckled in, and Ianto was giving Lisa another kiss, and he was leaving. Leaving! After all that, he was walking away and up the ramp Jack had built. He had other things to do, a life to lead, and Jack's sole place in it was to be the man who was rude to Lisa last week.

"Time we should be getting back," said Bren. "If you're ready, dear."

Lisa nodded. "Lois, see you later. Captain."

Lois went back to her lunch. Jack looked down at his and didn't recognise it, made himself take a bite. He heard laughter. He turned his head, and saw Tosh covering her mouth to stifle her own laugh. She and Mickey had come to the café after all, and had a table to themselves. He was smiling, she was having a good time.

Later, when they were alone for a moment in the office, he asked her, "Have fun?"

"It's a good day for second chances." Her eyes were bright, and he was happy for her.

"You're right," he said, and he kept a close eye on the parking lot camera for a dark blue minivan to come back. The baby had to wake up eventually.

VVVVV

Ianto didn't bring the stroller when he returned in the afternoon. Jack watched him on the camera, carrying just the tiny bundle. Perhaps the other two were with a sitter? Jack switched the view to the café, waited for Lisa to take the baby again. A stray worry: would Ianto go with her wherever she went in back to nurse?

Nope. Tradeoff. Coffee. Bingo.

"Back later," Jack said to Lois as he scooted out of the office past her. He didn't hear her reply.

A minute later, he had a semi-decent cup of coffee in his hand and headed straight for where Ianto sat, holding his own cup reverently. Jack wondered if Lisa knew she shared his heart with Columbian beans.

"Ianto Jones," he said, slipping into the seat across from him. "You're missing a pram."

"The other two are with my sister."

"I'm sure Rhiannon's have a splendid time with them." That got him the attention he'd been looking for.

"You've been doing research."

"I make a point of knowing things about people who know things about me."

"So you can arrange amnesia for us?"

"Only when necessary. You're not a threat. Lisa's not a threat. We don't have a problem."

"You say that now. You didn't hear what she had to say about you last week."

"I was rude last week. That was my fault. Can you give her my apologies?"

"No, but you can feel free to do it yourself. She'll be back soon."

"Not that soon. She just left a minute ago, and the baby will be hungry." He paused. "What's the baby's name?"

"You didn't do enough research, then." Ianto drank his coffee. "Isabelle."

"That's pretty."

"Who are you?"

"Captain Jack Harkness. We met earlier."

"Yes. We did." Ianto looked around, saw more people in the café. "Do you have time to take a walk? I'd rather not have this discussion here."

Jack said, "Come with me." He could get to the roof from the regular lift if he used the right code. As he punched in the top button, he surreptitiously pressed his wrist strap.

Ianto swallowed as the door opened; he'd never been good with heights. "It'll be fine," Jack said. "I won't let you fall off the roof."

"Or push me?"

"Nah. Make too much of a mess." They walked out together, falling into step, and Jack tried to stay cool. "Privacy, as requested."

"All the better to kill people with?"

"So suspicious. You were the one who wanted to talk."

"I did. So who are you?"

"We went over this."

Ianto walked towards the edge, looked over. Jack could see the faint pulse at his throat quicken, and pushed away memories of kissing and licking and loving that spot where the life beat so close to the surface. Ianto pulled his coat a little closer against himself in the breeze.

"My mother died when I was nine. Not long before she did, she took my sister and me to a playground. I remember because it was the last good day for her. After that, she was in and out of hospital and in a month, she was gone."

"I'm sorry," Jack said.

"Did you kill her?"

"What? No!"

He sighed. "Good. Because I remember you there, when I was nine, in your coat." He gestured at Jack's greatcoat. "You put it on me when I was cold. There was another man there, talking to my mother. Then you were both gone, and she was sick. I'd always wondered."

"It's not what you think."

"I don't know what to think. You were there at our wedding. I saw you, looking not a day older, wearing that same coat. I didn't remember you, not at first, but I pieced it together after Lisa's dad passed away a few months later."

"I swear I didn't kill him either."

Ianto looked at him, head tilted in that way he had while he processed some new factoid. "I don't think you did. But you're always there when my world tilts. So I'm asking, who are you, and why are you following me? Who am I going to lose now?"

"No one. I'm not … " Tosh had remembered. Why wouldn't he? "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not here to hurt anyone."

"You hurt people all the time. Usually aliens."

"Well, they're no sewer rats, but they fill the day."

"The gargoyles were worse."

"High up?"

"Yeah."

"Lisa figure out you're an adrenaline addict yet, or are you still claiming you've got no interest in danger?"

"Excuse me?"

"Ianto Jones. Show him porn, take him to an exclusive, and expensive, club, you hardly get more out of him than a snarky comment about padding. However," Jack said, stepping up onto the ledge, "let him do some petty shoplifting, take him someplace dangerous, show him a monster with extra teeth," Jack was ticking off on his fingers now, "put his life at risk, or, God helps us all, tell him the apocalypse is coming round again? Then," he jumped down again and walked so close to Ianto he could feel the warmth from his coat, "he can barely keep his trousers up."

"You have the strangest researchers working for you."

"Private study."

"I'm flattered. Also worried."

"Good."

"Lisa told me all about you, you know, about what her boss used to say."

"Yvonne was a fool."

"Lisa thought so too. You were a minor folk hero among the One staff."

Jack stopped short. "Really?"

"Minor. Very minor."

"Robin Hood?"

"You might have rated just above Cornish pixie."

"I can build on that."

"You're not, let's get this clear, an actual pixie, fairy, angel or alien? Right?"

"Human born and bred." Not from this planet, but Ianto didn't need to hear the whole story today.

"I'd been banking on the angel theory."

"You don't believe in angels."

"It was a theory. I notice you haven't denied it was you either time."

He hadn't. "Can I deny it now?"

"No. Now I'd call you a liar. Before, I'd have been talked into being confused. The sun in my eyes, maybe, or an emotional time that had gotten mixed up in my head."

"Are you sure you're not confused now?"

"I'm sure. It was you. You've been following me for over fifteen years."

"That's one way of looking at it. Time travel's another."

His face went sickly. Jack quashed the impulse to grab him and hold on till the vertigo passed. "Puke over there," he said instead.

"I'll be fine," Ianto said, and proved the lie by staggering and veering close the ledge. Jack did grab him then, drew him into his shoulder.

"Shouldn't have brought you here. You hate heights."

Ianto pulled back, but towards the door instead of the pavement below. "Why do you know things about me? Why are you following me? Who are you?"

Jack opened his mouth, and he almost told him. Everything. Who he'd been, what they'd been. His name. This was his second chance.

Ianto fumbled in his coat pocket and pulled something out. "And what is this?" He put something cold in Jack's hand. A broken stopwatch.

Jack closed his hand around it. This Ianto had no idea. He'd never lost Lisa, never sold his own soul in a failed attempt to bring her back, never had to shut her cold, dead body and the bodies of too many friends away for storage after he'd carefully cleaned away the blood and the mess, never had to feel that cold sink so deeply into his bones that he'd look for comfort and warmth anywhere, as the hands on the clock ticked away his life.

This Ianto had never been broken until he thought the only person who could put him back together was Jack. Fucking Peter fucking Sheffield, anyway.

Just as the Doctor had arranged. Just as his mother had begged. And every minute Jack spent there with him brought him closer to being that same broken man.

_"You're not safe, Jack. No one who is with you is safe."_

"It's nothing. Dropped it, is all. You can keep it," he said, giving the watch back, but Ianto wouldn't take it.

"No, thanks." Jack put it back in his pocket. Something to look at and slowly go mad over.

"We should go. Lisa will be wondering where you are."

"She knows I'm with you."

"Then we'd really better get you back."

"I still don't know anything about you. Why were you there, with my mother?"

"I can't tell you that." His mother had never told Ianto or Rhi about her time with the Doctor. It wasn't Jack's secret to offer him now. "She knew she was sick, if that's what you wanted. She asked us to keep an eye on the two of you. Protect you." There. Close enough to true, anyway.

"I've never seen the other fellow again. He's your … ?"

How to answer that? Nights, or days, on the TARDIS, the three of them delighting in each other. A century gone now, for Jack, and horror on the Doctor's face every time he tried not to see what Jack had become. "My friend. He's around."

"Here?"

"Don't worry about it. Go home. Go be with your perfect little family. Forget this place. Forget me. Go be someone else away from aliens and giant rats. Take care of your kids."

He punched the button for the lift. Ianto came up behind him, saying nothing. Maybe he was still absorbing everything. His Ianto had been wonderful at digesting information for hours, quietly working on something else until he was ready, and then creeping up behind Jack with a half-smile and a cup of coffee and the perfect comment on what they'd been discussing.

This wasn't that comment.

"What else do you know about me?" The lift door opened. They stepped inside.

"Hm?"

"You know things about me. What else?"

The sex things came first to Jack's mind, the sensitive places Ianto liked to be touched, the filthy things he wanted growled into his ear as they moved against each other. But that wasn't what he needed to hear right now.

"I know about your father. He was brilliant, but he went to pieces when your mother got sick. He made up stories about his job when you were little, because you didn't understand, and then you told yourself stories when he stopped trying and pulled inside himself after she was gone.

"I know you didn't touch coffee until your last year of school. When you did, it was like finding religion.

"I know that you've spent your whole life feeling like a piece of you is missing. You think you can fill it when you fall in love, and you're less empty when you do, but you still wake up in the middle of the night and hear an echo, and you're sure you always will."

He risked looking at him now. Ianto's eyes were as wide as his son's had been. "Who _are_ you?" he asked again, as the door opened at the ground floor.

"Captain Jack Harkness." The lie had become the reality, now and forever. "Go home, Ianto Jones."

He placed a hand on his shoulder, guided him back to the café. Lisa sat at the table holding Isabelle.

"I found this in the hallway," Jack said. "I think it's yours."

"Thanks," she said. "I was wondering where it had wandered off to." She stood up as they came over. "Do you want to hold her?"

Jack was confused, then realised she was talking to him. "Uh, sure." His arms were suddenly full of baby, and he looked into the sleepiest eyes he'd ever seen. Isabelle was tiny and awash in new baby smell. "Hello," he said, startled.

_"You're an impossible thing, Jack."_

Jack rocked the impossible thing in his arms. She shouldn't exist. Her brother and sister shouldn't exist. Her mother should have died years ago. Her father should have died last September. And here was a whole new world that contained all of them.

He'd created this.

"Hello," he said again, and watched her unfocused eyes until Ianto finally took her from his arms to take her home.

VVVVV

In the middle of clearing out the newest room he'd uncovered, the Rift alarm sounded. Jack half-crawled over the rubble back to the sub-basement and touched his ear. "Checking on it now." Technically a lie, but he was already jogging through the passages back to the lift, and it was another thirty seconds until he was calling up data on a console.

"Who's there?"

Tosh was first to respond; the rest chimed in tiredly. It was almost 2 AM. "Tell him yourself," he heard, barely, in a voice that was probably Johnson.

"Okay. Metallic object, half a metre long. Car park. I'll check it out. Stay ready."

"I can come," Mickey said.

"I'll let you know if I need you." His old team, he'd have chased them out of bed, harangued them to move faster, and brought them all to some site in the middle of nowhere to discover it was some kind of lost football. Alien football, but football.

Jack grabbed his coat and hurried to the SUV. The satnav took him straight to the site. Jack took readings from inside before he opened the door. He'd run directly into danger countless times, only to be groused at, usually by Tosh but Gwen and Ianto both took their turns, because he'd failed to notice the big blinking warning light sitting there all handy on the dash. He told himself it was out of fondness, and not just because they were tired of waiting for his corpse to reanimate so they could get on with things.

No immediate danger pinged on the readouts. Jack pulled on the heavy work gloves from under the seat. In this timeline, they must have also had enough of the side effects of touching strange artifacts.

_"Jack, I swear that if you don't stop touching that RIGHT NOW, when this is all done, I will cut off your hands just to see how long they take to grow back."_

It should be funny, since it's his face saying it in his voice, but he hears the edge of panic in the voice, and he flashes a grin since no one would buy a mumbled apology. Jack's body-switched before, and he knows there's etiquette, and that the others are freaking out wearing new faces and forms, but really, he's going to have to show them the fun parts before this wears off tomorrow.

Out of the SUV, the night air was chilly. Jack approached the impact crater, about the size of a medium pothole, in the middle of the empty carpark. He flicked on the recording equipment, rattled off the date and time, and took several shots of the object and closer readings. Nothing. This was looking more "football" than "body-switching device."

He examined the object, saw what appeared to be a catch, and fumbled with it until it opened. Inside, an iridescent globe sat, protected by the metal case. He scanned again, found a faint energy reading, and picked it up carefully. As he turned it over, he saw the markings on the bottom, recognising them with amusement.

VVVVV

"Denakadian recording device. Proprietary tech, very nice." He set it down in the middle of the table among the bags and plates.

"What's it for?" Gwen asked.

"Anything. It records pictures, sounds, smells, no sensations. That's a later model than this one. Those were fun. The porn industry was completely revitalised."

Mickey said, "It's an alien porno?"

"This one? Nah. It's someone's family pictures. I went through it last night. Lots of vacation slides, couple of childbirth memories. Fifty centuries from now, give or take."

Lois picked it up. "So we'll file it under 'What I Did On My Alien Summer Vacation.'"

"Sure. Be sure to tag it as future info. I don't think there's massive spoilers for things now, but we can't be too careful."

"Right," said Johnson. "You're the only one who gets to know the future on this team."

VVVVV

Lunch was pre-empted by the arrival of a Rift refugee, an old man from fourteenth century Russia, if his clothes and language were right. Jack escorted him to the holding facility, unable to recall enough of the language to make conversation and relying on Tosh's pocket translator.

"Somewhere safe," he managed to get across. It would be much harder to explain the rest, that the man's family was gone, everything he knew. Even if the nurses could coax his original location out of him somehow - an almost impossible task - the shock of what the place had become since would kill him. Living in the past, without creature comforts that had become normal, this was hard on visitors from times yet to be. Jack felt it all the time. Much worse, though, was being surrounded by impossible buildings and people, with no context and no words to explain other than "magic."

The medical tests, necessary, were administered at Flat Holm. He gasped and whined as the blood samples were drawn, and again as he was vaccinated against the maladies the other residents had brought with them and given antibiotics to treat the growing infection from the rotten teeth in his mouth.

Jack stayed with him as he settled into his new room, which had been emptied of too many items that would just confuse him. He could be given a radio eventually, and if his mind didn't snap, a television tuned to stations the nurses felt were acceptable. If he could read, they would put out feelers for books, but as the man settled into a chair, Jack was certain he'd spend the rest of his short life right there, too frightened and confused to do more.

VVVVV

Friday morning was spent reorganising their artifacts after the Denakadian photo album, stored too close to an Argellian memory feedback cluster, exploded. Not much was damaged, other than the two devices, but Jack wanted to go through their stores to make certain it wasn't going to happen again. That had been one of Ianto's tasks, inherited from a woman named Delyth Jenkins, who'd blown up rather messily when she hadn't been careful enough one morning shortly after Tosh joined. Jack had taken over the job on the basis that if he blew up, it was only temporary, but he'd been grateful to pawn it off once he recognised Ianto's OCD tendencies.

Lunch was cut short by another Rift alarm, which went off just as they were sitting down. Had he not been so disappointed, Jack would have been amused by the excuses they all suddenly came up with. Bren was turning into an issue. Jack had done some quick research, found out she was the head of the tiny software company, that she'd gone to school with Lisa's brother. Jack didn't like the idea of his people running into her every day. Despite his still-lingering desire to ship Ianto and Lisa as far away from him as he could, both could be trusted with the occasional conversational slip or sudden unexplained departure. Bren was unknown, untrusted, and as far as Jack was concerned, unwanted.

None of that mattered at the moment as they sped towards the address in the satnav. Lois was along for another training mission, and looked deeply uncomfortable. She gave him a sick smile as they reached the site and checked their readings.

Tosh's voice came over the comm: "This one's hot. Get the suits."

Two hours and a half-dozen minor radiation burns later, they had their newest acquisition in a thick, lead vault under the building. Jack was still swearing as the skin on his hands knit when he saw Dr. Sheffield waiting patiently out in Lois' office, flipping through a magazine. "You're late," he said amicably.

"We had work to do." The phone rang at Lois' desk.

"You always do."

Lois said, "Jack, it's for you. UNIT."

"Is it Martha?"

"No."

"Can I get out of seeing him?" he said, aiming his thumb at Peter.

"Also no."

"Then handle it."

"If you're ready," Dr. Sheffield said, and stood up, heading for the back office with the couch. Jack watched him go, enjoying the view, and then followed as Lois put on her professional voice.

"Have you recovered your memory?" Sheffield asked once the door to the back office was closed.

Jack lounged in the chair. "Nope. We've talked everything out, and I've got enough similar memories to function. It's fine."

"Still no idea of who might have done this to you?"

"Tosh has a theory."

"Does she?" He looked over his glasses at Jack. Jack wondered what she'd told the doctor during her session this week.

"She's working on it."

Sheffield made a note. Jack watched the bend of his arm, the way his lips moved so slightly as he wrote. A good lip reader could find out his most secret writings just by observing close enough, and now Jack hoped the contact lenses had survived in this timeline too.

"Would you like to talk about this week?"

"The week's been fine. We found another Rift refugee."

"Tell me about him."

Jack did.

VVVVV

The weekend was busy. Jack tried not to worry about the rise in Rift activity this week, but part of him wondered how responsible he was. He found himself obsessively digging into his coat pocket for the watch, holding it like a talisman when he wasn't otherwise busy driving or shooting or dragging in some monster or wrapping up another wound. (They needed a doctor. Lois ought put that at the top of one of her lists and circle it in red.) His fidgeting got so bad that Mickey teased him about playing pocket pool.

"Not in the car," Johnson said from the front seat.

"Turn here," Lois said, navigating. "What's this mean when it blinks?"

"That it's not working again," said Mickey, taking the reader out of her hands and smacking it on the side. "Here."

"Thanks." Lois examined it further. "Ten of them, three blocks from here." Johnson turned down another alley.

"Everyone ready?" Jack said. "Good. Go!"

VVVVV

Martha called Sunday night. "Got hold of him," she said after hellos and a bit of banter.

"Great. I need to talk to him."

"I told him. He said no."

"No what?"

"He didn't say. Did you ask him a question?"

"The one I had was a 'What' type, and I hadn't asked him yet."

"He also said go eat a banana. That's not a sex thing, right?"

"Not in this case. Just 'no' and 'go eat a banana?'"

"There was some swearing. Well, swearing for him. Did you mess up the twenty-third century?"

"Another question I'd love to ask him."

VVVVV

Monday morning, Lois was the only one to arrive on time, which was to say she was there before Jack came in not especially late. He helped her gather her agendas before she finally convinced him, as sweetly as possible, that he was in her way, so instead he sat down and went over the automatically-generated reports from the previous night after he'd gone home.

"I'm going to let the lease run out on my flat," he said to her as he downed his first coffee of the day. "Might as well move in here."

"You can't," said Lois. "Policy. 'Torchwood employees may use temporary sleeping quarters but must maintain separate living arrangements.'"

"Did I write that one, too?"

"You signed it."

"Why?"

"On Dr. Sheffield's advice. He said it's unhealthy for someone, even you, to live at work. I believe he also indicated part of your overcompensation had to do with not having a proper life outside of work."

"I never overcompensate!"

"Of course not," Gwen said, puffing a bit as she sat down at the table.

"Why can't I live here? I can keep an eye on things better. It's not like I sleep anyway."

Gwen frowned. "How long have you not been sleeping?"

"I never sleep," he said, which wasn't true but close enough.

"I can call Martha."

"Dr. Sheffield gave me something already. Don't worry about it." He handed her a muffin.

"Muffins!" Mickey said, coming in. "Excellent!"

VVVVV

The police alert came in at eleven, hostage situation. "Not one of ours," Tosh said. Jack, bored with the report he was writing, flicked his monitor over to listen anyway while he worked.

" … the Pili Pala Day Nursery … "

He was already on his feet. "We're going. Get in the car. Now!"

"What?" said Tosh. Heads popped comically out of the office spaces. "It's not an alien, is it?"

Gwen came out of her office. "Jack?"

He had his coat on and was grabbing the SUV keys. "That's where Lisa's daughter goes to school."

"I'm coming."

"Stay here," he said irritably, as Mickey and Johnson pushed past them to get the SUV ready. Lois came in through the office door ready to go.

"Lois," Gwen said, "Love you. You're going to be useless."

"Tosh and I can coordinate from here," Lois said, and went to the monitor beside Tosh's.

"Come on," Gwen said.

"Out the front," he replied and led her out past the office.

Sure enough, Lisa was standing in the foyer, mobile slack at her side, face gone still with shock. Jack took her hand, covered it with his other one.

"Need a ride?"

VVVVV  
TBC  
VVVVV

Note to people reading along at home: I see you!


	4. Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> VVVVV  
> Part Four  
> VVVVV

VVVVV  
Part Four  
VVVVV

Tosh and Lois streamed information to their dash, while Gwen monitored the police channel. Two, possibly three, armed men had gone into the school. One teacher was wounded but had gotten out to call 999. The local media, following the same police frequencies, were already on the story, even as parents were still being notified. By the time they arrived, the scene was already a mess of police cars, reporters, and mums and dads just arriving.

"This isn't our jurisdiction," Johnson said, checking her weapons and then slipping them under her coat.

"Don't care," Jack said, swinging it into what would do for a parking spot. Five seconds later, the blue minivan slid into place beside it.

They poured out of the SUV. Gwen made a beeline for the police, while Jack turned to Lisa. "Are you cleared on these?" He handed her a pistol. She nodded, loading the chamber. "Good."

Behind him, the minivan's door opened and shut. Jack turned around and his jaw met Ianto's fist.

"What have you done?" He pushed Jack against the SUV.

Jack blinked and rubbed his jaw and scrambled back to his feet as Mickey grabbed Ianto's arms.

"Not now, mate!"

"You! This is all you! If anything happens to her … " Lisa went to him and put her arms around his neck.

"Let him go," Jack said, and Mickey dropped his grip.

Gwen cut in over the comm: "They're releasing some of the hostages."

Jack touched his ear. "Tell them we're dealing with aliens, then get back here."

Johnson looked through her binoculars. "Here they come." She frowned. "They're only letting the boys go."

Ianto went pale. Watching him, Jack said, "We're going in." He pulled out a taser and handed it to Ianto. "You know how to use this."

"Why does Lisa get a gun?"

"I don't have time to find out how much you've practised, and you can't hit a barn when you haven't. Anyway, you're with me. We're going in the back to get the kids out." He turned to Johnson. "At my signal, I want you, Mickey and Lisa to go in the front. You're the distraction. Get their attention."

Gwen, huffing, came back. "Where am I?"

"Back here with the minivan. Keep an eye on the kids."

"The three of you are with me," Gwen said, ignoring him. "Same plan as before. They may be using the hostages as shields. Johnson, if you can get the shot, take it." She took Lisa's gun, emptied the clip, and handed it back to her. "Jack trusts you, I can't. Stay close. You've got one shot if you need it."

"Let's go," Jack said, and scrambled out to go around the long way. Ianto hurried behind him.

"Why am I with you?"

"Two reasons. First, you're the one who comes here with Callie every day. She'll know you. The other kids will know you. Second, if I don't, you'll go in anyway and get yourself killed. This way I can keep an eye on you."

They had reached the back of the building now, and pressed their backs against it. There was a door, locked, and a window which wasn't. Jack touched his ear as he yanked up the window. "Now!"

Half a second later, he heard the commotion from the front. "Let's go." They pulled each other in through the window. "One down," Gwen said in his ear. "One still out here."

The distinct sound of small children crying came from a door on the left. Jack moved to the door, peered through the window to see where creep number three was. He held up one finger, pointed towards that side of the room. "Get the kids down, I'll take him out."

Ianto nodded, and Jack held up three fingers, then two, then one. He kicked the door open.

"Girls, get on the floor RIGHT NOW!" Jack had half a second to be impressed with the timbre in Ianto's voice; that was a command that promised no supper before bedtime as the least of their problems.

The third creep had his hand on a little girl's shoulder, but she was small and he was tall, and Jack didn't intend to miss. As the man's body fell, he ran to scoop up the child and swing her tactfully away from the corpse. "It's okay, kiddo. Uncle Jack's got you."

Her eyes stayed on Ianto. "Papa?"

"Tout va être bien, ma petite." He was not going to be distracted by Ianto's speaking French. He was not going to be distracted by …

"Second one down," said Johnson over the comm.

"Third one down here," Jack said. "Kids are secured. Time for cleanup." He turned toward Ianto to hand Callie to him when a fourth creep came into the room, and this one knew what had happened to his friends.

"Move!" Jack shouted, and pushed the girl into her father and both out of the way as the bullets ripped into him, tearing heart and lungs, filling his mouth with blood.

He fell to his knees, stunned. They had maybe a second left before the gunman would turn on Ianto and the children. Jack howled, or tried, sputtering and coughing instead, anything to get his attention another few moments. He could see Ianto tell his daughter to stay down, and watched him tense, then spring onto the gunman. The man was ready to fire, but there was already a stun gun pressed to his groin and he fell. Ianto hit him with a second blast to make sure, and disarmed him as Jack collapsed to the floor.

He wanted to say, "Watch for another one just in case," but the blood was deep in his throat and Lois was going to be pissed at the dry cleaning bills again.

"Girls, keep down," Ianto said in a calm, soothing voice. "Everything is all right now." He reached Jack's side, and as Jack's eyes drifted shut, he could see the panic rising on Ianto's face. He grabbed the comm from Jack's ear, fumbling with the speaker. "Man down. Urgent! Man down! Two hostiles subdued, agent down."

Ianto's hand went to Jack's face, and oh, it had been such a long time, and then he was reaching for Jack's neck. Find. A pulse.

Jack died.

VVVVV

Coming back hurt like hell, and he choked his way into life. Ianto, with the comm still in his hand, scrambled backwards to his daughter, who was sitting up watching and shivering while her classmates were still down on the ground, crying softly. Jack coughed, spat blood to the other side, and did a quick check. Everything was still there, all systems back to what passed for normal.

"Hate that," he said casually, and grabbed for the comm out of Ianto's unresisting hand. "Gwen, report."

"You all right?" she asked.

"I'll be fine. We got the two back here. Added to your two that makes four. Tell Andy he can't count. They can come in when they want."

Jack turned to the kids. "You girls did great! You can get up now. Your mums and dads are going to come get you. Can you be good and wait for them here?" Some of the girls got up, most of them were still crying.

He stood, too aware of the blood on his shirt. He pulled his coat around himself and buttoned it. That would help a little. "Come on. We'll go out the way we came in. You can bring Callie." He held out his hand and helped Ianto to his feet.

"What are you?"

"We're not going to start that again are we?" And because he'd had that kind of day, and because temptation was something Jack was bad at resisting, he held onto Ianto's hand while Callie held tightly to the other, as they made their way back to the hallway and out the window.

"You were dead," Ianto said. "Then you weren't. I suppose that explains why you look the same from when I was a child."

"But still good-looking."

"Sorry," Ianto said. "About punching you back there."

"It's okay. I'd have punched me too."

They met the others back at the SUV, where Lisa took Callie and hugged her hard while Ianto checked on the two little ones in the van. Jack spied Gwen talked to the police, and gave her a little wave.

"Mama! Il a été vraiment blessé et après tout était bien!"

"What's that?" Mickey asked.

"Nothing," said Jack.

Lisa stroked her daughter's hair, and Jack didn't make out quite what she said until the last word: " … Superman."

Jack grinned, and bent down to Callie's level. "That's right. Can you keep the secret for me?"

Her eyes were round, and she nodded. Then she buried her face in her mother's neck. Jack watched her, amused, and noticed the fine cover of sweat over Lisa's face. If he was in the mood to be punched again, he'd say she looked more than a bit turned on. A far more knowing, if covert, glance back at Ianto gave the same impression. For Christ's sake, they were both enjoying the adrenaline rush! No wonder they had the kids so quickly. If they were running into half the dangerous things back in Paris that they'd said, they were probably going at it like rabbits every night.

Now that was a lovely picture to have in his head.

Gwen came back. "Are we done here?"

Jack turned to Ianto and Lisa. "Don't stick around for questioning. You don't want to start coming up with answers."

"What if they ask anyway?"

"Tell the police you're with us," Jack said, getting into the SUV. "And remind them they owe us a favor."

"They're with us?" Gwen asked when the doors were closed.

"Quiet. I'm Superman!"

"Oh good God," said Johnson

VVVVV

The police had already called once by the time they made it back to work. The only death had been the one Jack took down in the classroom. Gwen had told him that Johnson had shot the first one outside as he'd tried to hide behind a teacher; she hadn't even paused. Lisa had shot the second in the shoulder, textbook, with the one bullet Gwen had left her. Andy was asking questions about the new Torchwood agents, questions which Gwen was carefully deflecting.

Lois let him off easy about the laundry. After Jack had changed his shirt and sheepishly handed off his coat to be cleaned, he made a point of spending time with her in the front office, asking about what she was working on, ruffling through her paperwork, and generally driving her up the wall.

He tossed three balled-up pieces of discarded paper in the air.

"What are you doing?"

"Juggling."

"Don't you have something better to be doing?"

"Probably." He grabbed her hand and danced her around the room. "Did you hear? I'm Superman. I wonder if I can fly?"

"You can't, and you've already ruined one set of clothes today."

"Superman and Lois! We're a winning team!"

"You are going to be insufferable about this all day, aren't you?" She laughed as she said it, went back to her chair.

"Oh, yes." His eyes twinkled. "Talk to me, Lois." He sat on the edge of her desk. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." Her eyes were on her monitor now.

"This is about earlier today, right?"

"I'm glad you got those kids out safely. You know, without me."

"You're getting much better," Jack said.

"I'm not. I love this work, I believe in what we do. You and Gwen don't trust me yet, and I can't blame you."

"We trust you."

"You put two civilians in today rather than me. And yes, Gwen told me about their backgrounds, but you haven't worked with either one and you still let them go on a mission." She sat back. "And they did fine. I can't even operate a stun gun properly."

"Maybe we should sign you up for the 'Paris sewer rat' training course."

"Maybe I shouldn't be here."

"Uh uh." Jack grabbed her hand. "No quitting. Lois Habiba, you're brilliant. You can work with people, which frankly, none of the rest of us have the first idea how to do. You get us places, keep us organised, and, against all history of this place, made us start thinking of this place as a career rather than a life sentence."

"I don't … "

"When we bring in new people, when I do, it's because we need a change. That's what you're bringing to us. We can always find someone to shoot a gun. Trust me, there is no end to the list of damaged people I can find who want to take out their personal pain on some deserving otherworldly scum. You're the first I've ever met here who can do the same thing with a stapler and a fax machine, and make the guy on the other end feel grateful at the end of it. You're amazing."

"I didn't join up to be a secretary."

"You're not. I'm still trying to figure out what you are, but since I manage to upset people when I talk to them … "

"You think so?"

" … and Gwen is busy actually trying to run things, I'm pretty sure you're going to be our efficient, competent face that we show to the world. You deal with the politicians and the bureaucrats, and while you're at it, keep reminding us that we're alive. That's not a secretary, that's an ambassador."

Her face lit up at the job description. "Ambassador, hm?"

He grinned. "Someday, I'll tell you the story of my adventures in Switzerland with the Ambassador from Wales and his wife."

"Skip it." She pursed her lips. "I should be able to shoot a gun. It's part of the job description."

"If you want more training, we'll set something up at the police range with Andy. You can take your time."

"Because we have new people coming in."

"They're not coming in. That was … We were doing them a favour."

"Then I know my first ambassadorial action. Jack, I know you don't have much use for the rules, but we do have to follow them."

"We do."

"We have authorisation to handle firearms. You handed restricted weapons to two civilians today, and one of them shot someone on your and Gwen's okay."

"Gwen said she did a great job." He folded his arms.

"That doesn't matter. You told the police she was Torchwood."

"She was."

"But she's not now, and they're already asking questions."

"We don't have to answer them."

"That's what I'm trying to get through to you. We do have to answer to someone. We have to obey the laws. Torchwood operates within the law, and the law makes room for us to operate. We're allowed to shoot people. Lisa isn't, and if the police find out we lied about her being with us, she can go to prison."

"Oh." His eyes flicked to the phone at Lois' desk, and the light still on for Gwen's line. "Excuse me."

He went into her office without knocking, just as she hung up. "Was that Andy?"

"No, that was about the reconstruction of the Plass. Andy called before."

"What did you say to him?"

"I told him we had a false alarm that they were alien terrorists."

"Did he buy it?"

"He bought that we screwed up, sure. Since we got all four pervs and the kids were scared but not hurt, no one's complaining."

"What did you tell him about our pretend agents?"

"I said they were from the London branch." Gwen hated lying to Andy.

"Good. Did he ask you anything else?"

"Only for Johnson's number. I still haven't had the heart to tell him."

"Have you told her?"

"God, no. She'd break his nose."

"Why did we hire her? Refresh my broken memory?" The taste of concrete was in his mouth again.

"You have a thing for women with guns." Often true. He enjoyed the damsel in distress type sometimes and under certain circumstances, but give him a woman with a handgun and a gleam in her eye, and he'd already be half naked. Which admittedly caused problems on its own. "We needed her. We needed people."

"Right."

VVVVV

Bren patted the empty seat beside her. Jack sat across instead. "Hello, Bren. You alone today?"

"You didn't hear?" Gwen and Lois sat down beside them.

"Hear what?"

"That nursery school thing yesterday? That was Lisa's daughter's school."

"Oh my goodness," Gwen said. "That's awful!"

"Is she all right?" Lois asked. "I heard everyone was fine."

"Shaken up, the poor lamb. I gave Lisa a day off to be with her family."

"That's good," said Gwen.

Jack hid his smile around a bite of pasta.

VVVVV

Bren wasn't at lunch the next day, but Lisa was already waiting for Gwen and Jack at the table. "I handed her a report right as we were about to walk out the door," she said, "and she wanted to get it out now."

"Convenient," Gwen said. "How's Callie?"

"Fine." She fiddled with her sandwich. "We're taking her out of the school. We're telling them it's for the security, and several families are doing the same, but mostly we don't want the other kids remembering her Dad was the one who came in to save them."

"He had help," Jack said.

Lisa laughed. "Don't worry, we know. Callie keeps asking about you. In fact," she said, looking over his shoulder, "your biggest fan just arrived."

The familiar double-pram was coming through the door, but Callie had already run down the ramp and was happily piling herself onto Jack. "Superman!"

Jack picked her up. "Shh! Remember, it's a secret."

Gwen said to Lisa, "Did you have to say that? He's been preening around like a peacock for two days."

"I have not!"

"What kind of a cock?" Ianto asked, parking the pram.

"You are twelve years old," Lisa said, and kissed him on the cheek as she picked up Isabelle. "Back soon."

Ianto went to get food. Jack bounced Callie on his lap as he ate. Tosh, Mickey, and surprisingly, Johnson came joined them before Ianto came back to the table.

Tosh glanced at Jack. "You've acquired a growth."

"I have." He hadn't been a lap in ages. "I like it."

"Ah, everyone's here," Ianto said, setting out places for the kids and unbuckling Kyle from where he squirmed in his seat. He noticed Tosh. "Hello."

"Toshiko Sato," she said, extending a hand.

"Ianto Jones," he said, taking it.

"You're getting famous around the office," she said, but she was watching Jack, a question in her eyes. He gave her a nod, and she offered a warm smile back to Ianto. "It's good to meet you."

_"I've caught them, the last two," the Master giggles into his ear. "They'll be here tomorrow, and then we'll play!" He lets Jack off easy this time, just a gunshot to the head. Torturing him isn't as much fun when the Doctor isn't present, Jack guesses._

In the morning, Jack's cell door slams open. The Master is furious: Ianto and Tosh managed to kill themselves before their transfer to the Valiant_. His plans cancelled, he spends a long, long day with Jack, peeling his skin away in narrow strips. Jack tries to separate himself from the pain. His mind keeps drifting back to the two of them, wondering which one suggested suicide, knowing they must have been terrified, hoping it was quick._

He dies, finally, but it never lasts.

"Is this everyone, then? Isn't Lois part of your … office?"

"She's at the dentist," Gwen said.

"I remember the dental plan," Ianto said wistfully. "That wasn't part of the package in Paris."

"Giant rats?" Mickey asked. "Really?"

"You had to be there. They were terrifying at first, and then just horrible in a very dull way."

"Weevils," said Johnson.

"What are Weevils?"

Gwen said, "Big, evil, dangerous, smelly things with too many teeth, and by the time you've caught your fiftieth one, you're praying for a damn Slitheen just to break the monotony."

"Slitheen?"

"Giant fart monsters," said Mickey. There were snorts of laughter down the table.

"Twelve," Lisa said, coming back. "The lot of you."

"What's wrong?" Ianto asked, standing up. "She's not hungry again?"

"You're sure you're not filling her up at home?"

"If she'd take a bottle from me, we wouldn't have to do this every day, would we?"

"They don't take bottles?" Gwen asked, faintly horrified.

"Just the stubborn ones," Ianto said, sitting down with Isabelle over his arm, absently bouncing and burping her. "Kyle refused a bottle until three months ago."

"And thank God he finally discovered them," Lisa said, taking her plate from Ianto's tray and diving in to her lunch. "I'm not a bloody cow. By the way, Gwen, when the doctors and nurses tell you that you won't be able to get pregnant while you're still nursing? Tell them they're liars."

"Done," Gwen said, the horror growing a bit. Jack made a mental note to chat with Rhys.

"So," said Ianto, "what exciting things are going on today?"

"Absolutely nothing," Jack said. "As far as you know, we're watching paint dry."

"Is it that paint we developed from the Landarian crash? The one that cloaks the walls if you're not careful?"

"That's great stuff," said Mickey. "Eugene painted the doors to the loos with it one time."

"That's brilliant," Ianto said, and Jack remembered when it had been Ianto's idea. Poor Owen.

Jack said, "Can we not talk about the top secret alien tech in front of people?"

"What people?" Gwen asked. "We're over here, and frankly, the rest of the building is afraid of you and Johnson. That's why they're sitting far away." She looked at Johnson. "Sorry."

"No offense taken."

"The kids. They shouldn't hear about this."

"They don't speak English," Ianto said, then petted Callie's head. "Well, not much."

"Besides," Lisa said, "they're going to know all about this sort of thing. Aliens killed everyone I worked with before they were born. It'd be irresponsible not to tell them."

Ianto said, "Callie's grown up with alien tech. The nursery was in the back of the office, which was also our spare storage room."

"It was a small office. We had to incarcerate monsters in the closet with the copy machine."

"Until that one off-world fellow figured out how to rewire the copier to transport himself back into space."

"That was amazing work," Lisa said. "I reverse-engineered it. Afterwards we always had to make sure we had it set to 'copy' when we wanted photocopies, or else we sent our reports into outer space."

"Lost two files and a paycheque that way."

"The paycheque was your own fault."

"I'm not the one who was using the copier as a means to save money on the garbage hauling and didn't set it back."

"Really a copier?" asked Tosh.

"You have to have the right model. I could show you. Once you see it done, it's mostly intuitive."

"That'd be great, thanks."

Gwen said, "Warn Lois, yeah? You break her copier and she may murder us all."

_The room is a nightmare: blood everywhere, Owen on the floor, and Gwen about to have her brain sawed open. Jack knows this, has seen this all, saw the wreckage and destruction at One when they picked over the corpse. And it's been rebuilt right under his nose. _

Jack said, "What part of 'Don't talk about alien tech over lunch' turned into 'Lisa's making us a matter transporter out of the Xerox machine'?"

Mickey said, "The part where you lost, mate," and he got up from the table.

"We should be getting back," Tosh said. "Lovely meeting you both. When can you come round to show me the copier thing?"

"I'll be done around four," Lisa said. "I can come by then."

"Perfect. See you."

Ianto plucked Callie from Jack's lap. "Up now. Uncle Jack has to go," he said slowly and precisely.

"Yeah." He paused. "Why did you come back to Cardiff?"

"What do you mean?"

Jack waved his arm. "Aliens. The Rift. You had to know this place was dangerous when you left. Why come back here?"

"As opposed to where?"

"Anywhere. London."

"Oh yeah," said Lisa. "London's safe. Cybermen and Daleks, no problem there."

"Or giant spaceships shaped like the Titanic trying to crash on the palace."

"Or Christmas stars that shoot people. That was exciting."

"Okay," Jack said. "Not London. Canada, then."

"What, with all those sasquatches?" asked Lisa.

"They get more alien landings per capita than any other country. They're just better at keeping it quiet. Plus, they give aliens parcels of land in the north."

"What about Australia?"

Ianto frowned at him. "You really haven't researched Australia, either, have you?"

"The entire continent's fauna came from a downed spaceship thousands of years ago."

"Tasmanian tigers are shapeshifters, the spiders were specially bred as warriors, and the koalas … " He shuddered.

"The koalas are terrifying."

"Why?" asked Gwen.

"You don't want to know," Ianto said.

"America? You could move to, I don't know, Cleveland."

"Hellmouth," they said together.

Ianto said, "Honestly, if we're going to be around monsters and aliens … "

"And let's not forget mysterious forces that make the children all speak in unison … "

"We may as well be here." He smiled and took a drink of his coffee.

"Come on," Gwen said. "Back to work. Tell Bren I said hello."

As they went out the doors of the café, Johnson said, "I'm unclear. Would you say they qualify as merely cute, excessively cute, or nauseatingly cute?"

"Be nice," Gwen said.

"Nauseating," Jack said.

"I agree."

VVVVV

The first thing they put through the copier was a tracking device. Tosh located it in the asteroid belt some time later, and called Lisa at home to give her the good news.

They sent a few more test objects. Then they were bored. The boredom was a mistake in an office with a bit too much alien trash that couldn't be sent to the dump. Johnson was the one who pointed out the Bay was getting full of bodies.

VVVVV

Martha called him in the middle of that very same night. "He told me to tell you," she said, yawning and with a definite air of 'I am not your bloody voicemail,' "that if you play with another matter transporter this century, he will use it to transport bits of you into the sun."

VVVVV

Lois excused herself from their breakfast to answer the phone out front. Jack was already looking over the day's agenda, circling small hot spots in Rift activity that he, Mickey and Johnson would have to check out this morning, and wondering when Gwen was going to roll in so he could break the bad news about the transporter to everyone at once.

Tosh said, "I think I've got the sensors recalibrated properly now. If you look at the blip from five AM, you can see the dimensions of what came through. It's tiny."

"And alive," Mickey said, looking at the readings. "Space mouse?" Johnson made a face.

"That'll be fun to try and find," said Jack. "We'll have to bring the nets. What's up with you?"

"I hate mice," Johnson said. "When I was in the service, one crawled into my boot. I didn't know it was there." She shuddered.

"Space hamster. Space squirrel. Chipmunk," Mickey amended. "Better?"

"What's this?" Johnson said, ignoring him.

"Negative Rift spike," said Tosh. "Could be the Rift taking something or someone. I've already told Andy to keep an eye out for missing persons in that area last night." She hesitated. "You should go by and see if anything obvious is gone. Could be another vanished park bench."

Jack quirked his mouth around his coffee cup. Space-time was scattered with random minor landmarks, dogs, fireplugs, grave markers, and at least one unoccupied squad car from the greater Cardiff area. In the very long life he expected to have, he'd be a little disappointed if he never ran across the park bench donated by the Ladies' Auxiliary among polite fanfare and gobbled up by a negative Rift spike that same evening.

Lois came back in, notepad in hand. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said, a little loudly, "Edward Rhys Williams was born at 3:26 this morning at University Hospital."

Jack led the clapping around the small table. "Good for Gwen."

Tosh said, "Isn't he early?"

"A bit," Lois said. "He's in intensive care right now, but Rhys said it's mostly for observation. Gwen had a Caesarian. She's recovering, Rhys said, but he was very clear that we were not to visit today. Their families are coming and she needs her rest." Translation: Jack was to keep the hell away.

"Send them the biggest bouquet in the hospital shop," Jack said.

"Already ordered. The card reads, 'From the gang at work.' Seemed non-specific enough not to worry her family or break their Retcon. You did Retcon them after the wedding, yes?"

Jack looked to Tosh, who nodded. That would be something to ask her about later. There'd been someone in his timeline to chide him gently, and without a single hint of jealousy, that he'd acted like an idiot again, then to kiss away his pouting protests. How had he behaved here? He'd managed not to run into Rhys yet, but they'd be at the hospital tomorrow, and it helped to know.

"You hear Lois, people. Gwen is out for the next couple of weeks."

"Six," Lois said. "That was the standard for Torchwood when the policy was last updated."

"You mean London's policy."

"They're the ones who wrote the rules. If you'd like to change them, I can give you the forms."

"Six weeks," Jack said. "Anyone have a problem with taking orders from me officially again? Good. I'll clear things with Gwen when she's up to consulting, keep her in the loop."

"Point of notice," Johnson said. "If she tells us one thing and you tell us another, I'm still going to listen to her."

"Point taken and noted."

VVVVV

Jack spent most of the morning with Mickey tracking down the space hamster while Johnson inspected the site that might or might not have something missing. They followed the hamster's trail until the Rift energy dissipated from the tracks, and had to use their hands and knees to find signs after that. Jack did not comment on enjoying the view of Mickey's behind, mainly because Lois had emailed him her weekly reminder of the official Torchwood policies on sexual harassment.

This being daylight, their search attracted a bit of attention. Jack had to concoct a story about losing his mate's pet snake, which had the added bonus of scaring off passersby who might otherwise want to help.

Johnson called in. "Found it, or more precisely, what it used to be."

"Alive?"

"Negative. Street sign. Someone thousands of years from now in another solar system is being told to slow down."

"Good advice for everyone. Want to help come look for the space hamster?"

"I'll pass."

Jack looked at Mickey. "We have got to do something with that. I wonder if Steven would like some pet rats for his next birthday."

"Your funeral. Of course, you've had a few of those." Mickey squinted through some branches. "Wait, I think I found something." He shot his hand through. "Ouch!"

Jack hurried around to the other side and slammed his net over the fleeing, furry little form.

"He bit me!" Mickey said, holding his hand.

The space mouse, or whatever, spit out a high-pitched but distinct stream of alien that was part profanity, part "And I'd do it again!" Jack held it up to his eye level. The alien was smallish, furryish, bluish, and angry as hell. "Sorry, pal," Jack said, and transferred it to the portable storage facility, which bore an uncanny resemblance to a hamster ball.

"Johnson, come get us. We found the alien. It bit Mickey."

"On my way."

VVVVV

Gwen was only allowed two visitors at a time, so they went in shifts. Jack went in with Tosh first, since they'd known her the longest. They stopped outside the nursery first, but couldn't see Edward.

In her room, Jack bent over and gave Gwen a soft kiss on her forehead. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been filleted."

"You look wonderful," Tosh said. "Are they treating you well?"

"Where's Rhys?" Jack asked.

"They're treating me fine. Rhys is in with Edward. He doesn't like it when he's out of our sight."

Jack moved things out of the way so Tosh could get close to Gwen's bedside. Tosh grabbed her hand and held it as they chatted about the baby. Jack just enjoyed being with them.

"Ah, was wondering when you lot were going to wander in," Rhys said. "Now don't you go getting her tired."

"It's fine. I'm fine," Gwen said.

"We won't stay," Jack said. "We just wanted to drop by."

"Jack," said Gwen.

"Hm?"

"We need more people. You're terrible at hiring, so make Lois do it, and sign whatever she gives you."

"Lois doesn't run Torchwood."

"Give her another month."

"No talkin' shop, now," Rhys said. "You can do all that without her today."

"Get some rest," Tosh said, and Gwen only winced a little when she leaned over to hug her.

Rhys took them out by the window to where Edward was. Tosh made wee little noises in her throat through the window. Jack watched the tiny fists wave and against all logic, he waved back.

VVVVV

He flung himself into a chair in the outer office. "Gwen says we need more people."

"We do," Lois said, not looking up from her screen.

"She wants you to do the hiring. She told me I need to sign whatever you hand me."

"I solemnly swear only to use my powers for good."

"Do you have someone in mind?"

"Gwen and I have been talking. She knew you'd be upset, but I know who she wants."

_Myfanwy falls to the ground right where they had just been, but for this moment, Jack isn't thinking about the pterodactyl and clearly the man on top of him isn't, either._

"When are you going to extend the offer?"

"Lunchtime. I just sent the email."

"Great."

Her computer pinged. "And there's his reply. He'll meet me here for lunch, I'll make the pitch then. I figure he'll want to go see Gwen afterwards so I'm arranging it for just before visiting hours."

"There are some things you should know about the background check."

"We examined his background in great detail already."

"Good."

"Don't look like that. You'll get used to it." She smiled. "Anyway, he's quite good-looking. I'm sure you won't mind having a pretty boy on the staff."

"Believe it or not, I don't jump every person I see."

"That reminds me. You have your appointment with Dr. Sheffield this afternoon. Don't forget."

"Wouldn't dream of missing it."

"If Andy can start next week, I'll put him in for Friday sessions too."

"That's a good … Andy?"

"He always thinks he can handle what we do, but I'm sure after his first week, he'll want someone to talk things over with."

"I'm sure," he echoed. "Andy?"

"Andy Davidson. You've met, any number of times. Your memory isn't acting up again, is it, Jack?"

"No. Maybe." Lois was watching him closely now. While he might be able to pass this off, he found he didn't want to. "I could've sworn we were talking about someone else just now."

"Who?"

"Never mind."

"Ianto?"

"Don't worry about it."

"Gwen teases you about bringing Ianto and Lisa on because you twitch every time someone says their names. There, you did it just now."

"I did not."

"You did. You always do. Is it because they're both your type?"

"Excuse me? I don't have a type."

"Lisa." She watched him twitch. "She's gorgeous, brilliant, and she can pick off a target at fifty metres. Ianto." Dammit, he was going to have to fix that. "He's got that fragile, kicked puppy look you can't resist, but throw him in a situation where someone he loves is threatened and the other fellow is not going to walk out."

"You have not been around nearly long enough to have come up with that on your own."

"Tosh and Gwen and I may have chatted about this before." She smiled. Jack kept his smile inward. Tosh wouldn't have told Lois and Gwen the important part. "Johnson doesn't say much, but she's got a pretty good idea of your tastes, she says."

"Good to know I'm the largest subject of gossip among the hens at work."

"Mickey thinks your sole criterion is 'breathing' but he's still peeved about his ex."

"So. Andy?"

"Lunchtime. He'll say yes."

VVVVV

Andy said yes. Jack was watching from the usual table, for once his attention not focused on Ianto, or even the squirmy three year old who'd insisted on climbing on him again. He was hoping to see the exact moment when it sunk in, and then found out he didn't have to. Andy stood up and shouted in glee.

"What's going on?" Bren asked.

"Mr. Davidson just accepted a position at H3," said Tosh.

"Actually," said Johnson, "he'll be working for Smith &amp; Jones. We outsourced the hiring to H3. They're … dynamic."

"Remind me, dear," Bren said. "What do you do at Smith &amp; Jones?"

"Pest eradication," Mickey said. He was still nursing the sore spot on his finger. Jack kept teasing him about space rabies.

Ianto said, "I've done pest eradication. Nasty business."

"But exciting," Johnson said.

"There's that." He took a sip from his coffee, but his eyes were on Jack now.

Jack said, "I'm sure Andy will be up to the challenge."

Lois came over to the table with Andy. He was beaming. "Did you hear?"

"I think the whole cafeteria heard," Bren said.

Jack suddenly had a swift, bad feeling as Andy opened his mouth, but he wasn't fast enough to his feet to stop Andy from saying, "Torchwood! I can't believe it!"

Bren said, "What's Torchwood? That sounds familiar."

"It's an expression," Ianto said quickly. "Means 'unexpected luck.' From the children's rhyme. You know the one. 'The big bad wolf, he went to the torchwood, huffing all the way.'"

"Yeah," Mickey said. "I use that expression all the time. Welcome aboard, mate!"

"Thanks," Andy said, a blush starting across his neck.

Jack made a mental note to slip into the Retcon stash. "Ianto, have you ever made Brenda a cup of your world-famous coffee?"

"Not yet."

"Come by the office later. You can work some magic."

They left shortly after Lisa came back, and Lois mouthed to Jack, "So your type."

"Shut up."

VVVVV  
TBC  
VVVVV

A/N: I still see you.


	5. Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> VVVVV  
> Part Five  
> VVVVV

VVVVV  
Part Five  
VVVVV

Ianto brought the children into the front office. Lois introduced him to the coffee machine while Jack bent down to Callie's height and pulled coins from her ears and nose. The other two adults in the room conferred in quiet tones for a few minutes, and then rejoined them.

"Can't do it," Ianto said. "You lack the proper materials and equipment."

"Can you get them?"

"I know the shops, yes."

Jack removed a credit card held under a fake name in a standby Torchwood account. "Go. I'll watch these three."

Ianto stared at the card, not taking it. "What?"

"Go forth. Fetch coffee materials. You'll get it done faster if the children stay here."

"You're not a babysitter."

"I've had kids. Ask Johnson." He touched his ear. "Johnson."

Ten seconds later, Johnson came to the outer office, gun not drawn but clearly ready. "What's wrong?"

"Johnson, I've had kids, right?"

Her jaw moved without her mouth opening. "What?" she finally said.

"Tell Mr. Jones here I've had kids."

"He has."

"You have?"

"At least one." Johnson was staring at the ceiling now. "You called me in for this?"

"You're a good witness."

"You're an idiot." She returned to the back office as Lois laughed.

Ianto said, "This is your best recommendation?"

"It'll be fine," Lois said. "You won't be gone long, yeah?"

Ianto gave him a look, and Jack grinned inside. He was familiar with the look, knew it was equal parts "Do not touch my stuff while I'm gone" and resignation. "Half an hour." He kissed Callie and patted the other two tenderly. The baby was asleep. "Please be careful."

He was out the door like a shot, and Jack wondered how long it'd been since he'd been away from them for more than a few minutes.

"Hey, kids," he said, and then stopped. How did someone entertain small children? It had been thirty years since he'd had the day to day responsibility for a child, and when he went to visit Steven, he'd swept in like a storm, bringing gifts and playing briefly before sweeping out again, leaving clutter in his wake. If Alice wasn't angry with him about the 456, she was no doubt still holding a grudge over all those visits too.

The office door opened and Dr. Sheffield came in. He paused as he saw the children. "Is this a bad time?"

"Um, no. Lois, could you … ?"

"I have just added another item to the 'acceptable reasons to delay your session' list," Lois said. "I'll be in the back."

"Hi," Jack said. Peter was wearing a very nice shirt today, aquamarine, bringing out the green flecks in his blue eyes, and was Jack actually scoping out the shrink again?

"Would you like to talk about it?"

Jack looked at Callie, who was digging a toy out from under the pram. She retrieved something soft, multicoloured, and squeaky. She handed it to Jack, burbling a stream of French.

"I can't," Jack said, and picked her up. "Callie, want to fly with Uncle Jack?"

VVVVV

Forty-five minutes and seventy-three flights around the office later, Ianto rushed in with his arms full of packages. He set them down and plucked Callie from Jack's arms, kissing her on the nose. "Were they any trouble?"

"Not much," Jack lied. The diaper changes had been exciting, more so when he was informed that he was in fact the only one there with experience. He'd managed. "Coffee?"

"Working on it now." He noticed Dr. Sheffield then, who was sitting in the office chair, Kyle on his lap, reading a magazine in a quiet, sing-song voice. "Who's this?"

"My therapist."

"Of course." Ianto busied himself setting up the new coffee press, readying the beans, and doing all those little tasks that Jack had watched him perform hundreds of times, trying to figure out how it happened. He'd tried replicating the process, and while the coffee had been good, it hadn't been perfect.

The grinder woke Isabelle. Jack picked her up and rocked her as the office began to fill with the smell of caffeinated heaven.

"Hold on," he said, and ducked into the back, still carrying the baby.

Tosh stared at him as he jogged past her station. "This day just gets stranger."

"Getting something," he said, and he signed out some Retcon for Bren. Tosh watched him until he was back out in the office. "Here," he said, and gave Ianto the pill. "Bren's coffee. She won't remember much of today, but everyone will be happier."

"Can I see that?" asked Dr. Sheffield. "I've never seen your amnesia pills before."

Jack said, "Not right now." He set Isabelle back into her chair. Ianto glared at him and then clicked her straps.

"Always use the fasteners."

"Yes, sir." Jack grabbed a cup and poured a healthy supply of coffee into it. A wave of generosity overtook him. He handed the cup to Dr. Sheffield. "Try this."

"You're not going to Retcon me?"

"Not today." Dr. Sheffield took the coffee, and still suspicious, took a drink. An expression overtook his face that Jack recognised well. Owen had called them "coffeegasms" until the first time Ianto deadpanned offering Owen his morning orgasm.

"I'll go deliver this to Bren, shall I?"

"Good idea."

After the door closed, Peter turned to Jack seriously. "The man has a gift."

"I know." Jack started pouring cups for the team. He wanted to watch as they tried it. "Can you keep an eye on the kids for a moment?"

Peter nodded, still in nirvana.

Jack took Tosh her cup first. The look on her face was worth the wait. "My God."

"Yeah. Lois, come try some."

Lois took a sip and her eyes widened. "This is in our office right now?"

"Right outside that door." Lois went to get more.

Johnson watched him with the same suspicion Peter had, and then broke into a smile. Jack had to remember to bring some coffee to Alice soon. She might not have Johnson shoot him this time.

He handed Mickey a cup. Mickey took a quick drink and then set it down. "Thanks."

Tosh stared at him. Jack said, "Don't you like it?"

"No, it's good. Why?"

Johnson said, "You're not overcome with sudden gratitude at drinking something a little better than sex?"

"Nooooo." Mickey flicked his eyes around to the others. "Am I missing something?" Johnson walked away, cradling her cup.

"You like tea better," Tosh said. "That's it."

"Yeah. But this isn't bad." As Jack went back into the outer office, he heard Mickey say to Tosh in a low voice, "Better than sex?"

"I could use a comparison."

Ianto returned just as Jack shut the inner door. "Mission accomplished."

"Thank you."

"I see you've emptied the pot."

"So we have," Jack said, realising he hadn't gotten any. "Could you make more?"

Lois was back behind her desk, typing furiously. Jack squeaked Callie's toy a few times to make her laugh and then went to see what Lois was doing.

"Lois?"

"Writing up an employment requisition."

"That's for Andy, right?"

"Did his already."

"Lois … "

"Jack, we're hiring him. We're doing it today." She finished her document, and he heard the printer go. "Gwen said you have to sign anything I hand you."

"You're taking on someone new?" asked Dr. Sheffield, finishing his coffee and making furtive eyes towards the machine where more awaited.

"No."

"Yes."

"Excuse me," Ianto said, and he held out a cup for Jack. "Am I going to be consulted on this at any point?"

"No," said Jack.

"No," said Lois.

"Can I have that?" asked Peter.

Jack grabbed the cup and held the long-awaited prize. He breathed in the scent. Better than sex? No. Jack knew exactly how good sex could be. This was definitely one of his favorite forms of foreplay, though.

The inner office door opened. Mickey and Tosh came out. "Taking an early day," said Mickey.

Lois opened her mouth, but Jack waved her down. "Let it go. They're conducting an experiment." He reluctantly handed the cup to Tosh. "You'll need this."

"Thanks," she said. "See you!"

"What was that about?" Dr. Sheffield asked, retrieving another cup.

"I'm sure they'll let you know next week." Jack made a third attempt at coffee. "I believe you and I have an appointment."

"Wait," Ianto said, and pulled the cup out of Jack's hand. Jack made a noise he would insist later was nothing like a squawk. "We weren't finished. Employment requisition?"

"You can start Monday," Lois said.

"I never said I could start at all."

"See?" said Jack. "He doesn't want the job." He tried to take his cup back, found it firmly in Ianto's grasp.

"I didn't say that."

"So you're saying yes," said Lois.

"I didn't say that either. I need to talk with Lisa."

"Good," said Lois. "We'll be approaching her once we've figured out a good exit scenario from Sunrise."

Jack said, "I thought you said Gwen was just joking."

"No, I said she was teasing you. That doesn't mean she doesn't want them aboard."

"Teasing you?" said Ianto. "About what?"

"Nothing."

"Talk to her this weekend," Lois said. "Here's our offer." She handed him the printout.

Ianto's eyes went wide. "You're not on the same budget Torchwood London was."

"We are," Jack said, and he swiped his coffee back. He took a long, grateful swig. Love. Pure love. "We just have far fewer people."

Lois poured some coffee into a Thermos. "I'm taking off. I'd like to see Gwen while visiting hours are still going on. She's being sent home tomorrow."

"Right," said Jack. "I'll let Johnson know we're the only ones here."

Peter coughed. "We do have an appointment."

Jack looked for help from Lois, but she was capping her Thermos and getting her things together. Ianto had checked the straps on the pram, filed the paper away safely, and was leading Callie out the door, which Lois held for him to get out. No help there.

Jack let Peter lead him to the back office. As he passed Johnson, he said, "You're in charge for the next hour. Don't blow anything up."

"Spoilsport."

When they were seated, Peter said, "So Callie tells me you're Superman."

VVVVV

His mobile rang at three AM while he was deep into another room of the collapsed archive. He didn't think he got reception down here.

"Martha Jones," Jack said.

"Guess again." The voice had changed, but the tone was exactly right.

"Hi." He didn't always get tongue-tied around the Doctor. Just sometimes, when he felt like a teenager with a ridiculous crush. "Are you here?"

"No, unless you also happen to be circling Proxima Centauri in the thirty-seventh century."

"Not currently, no. To what do I owe the honor?"

"I need you to remind me of something important. The next time you ask me for something … "

" … which I've promised not to do," Jack reminded him.

"And I'm sure you believed yourself when you said it. The next time, remind me to tell you to take a long walk off a short space platform."

"It can't be that bad."

"History quiz, Jack. Who founded the Ashtend Colony in 2275?"

"Robert Maloney. Every schoolkid knows that."

"Every schoolchild did know that. Fixed point. Important human history. You know the drill."

"I do."

"Not, I remind you, a point that I should suddenly find changed." Worry bloomed in the back of his mind.

"Doctor … "

"Kathleen Welles. Lovely woman, bit of an adventurer, nice enough when she's not trying to shoot me."

"Someone shot you?"

"Tried to. Bit of a misunderstanding. Her fault. Well, partially my fault. Well, more than partially. Water under the bridge now. Anyway. Kathleen founded the colony."

"That's … not good." The worried feeling filled his stomach.

"Could be not good. Actually could be mostly the same. History wants to happen. More or less."

"How much trouble does it cause, and how much is my fault?"

"I dealt with it. Different nudge here, problem with first contact there. It's sorted."

"Good?"

"You want to guess what I'm going to yell at you about?"

"Sure. What's-her-face has a great-great-grand something who happens to be toddling around Cardiff just now. Option on three names."

"Good boy. Silver star for you. Ask me where I intend to pin it."

Jack lowered his voice. "Doctor, I didn't think you cared."

"Cardiff."

"Hm?" Jack was distracted with thoughts of the Doctor and little silver stars. The ones with sticky on the back when you lick them.

"You said Cardiff. Jo's boy went to France, and we sent his girlfriend with him. Lydia."

"Lisa."

"Right. Jack … "

"They came back. Lisa got a job here."

"With Torchwood?"

"Not yet." Might as well come completely clean. "She did build us that transporter you were complaining about."

"Lisa did?"

"She reverse engineered it from something."

"And then you used it to dump radioactive trash in the asteroid belt."

"I … may have done."

"Jack, remind me. In what way does dealing with you differ from dealing with a trained chimpanzee?"

"I'm better looking."

There was a long sigh that echoed for sixteen centuries. "Fine. You caused this mess. You clean it up."

"Clean it up how?"

"Jack Harkness, you've just been given a brand new job. You're the babysitter."

"I did that this afternoon."

"Not the children. Well, the children too. Your boyfriend and his wife are messing with the timeline. Your job is to keep an eye on them. Don't let her build anything else that will change history. If he's anything like his mother, he'll find all sorts of ways to get into trouble, too. Keep him safe, and when he manages to poke sticks at the wasp nests anyway, drag him back out. It'll give you something to do with your time."

Jack fought down a retort, and then stopped. "You want me to watch over Ianto and Lisa?"

"Why not? Telling you to stay away hasn't worked."

"Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks." The word was insufficient. It'd have to do.

He heard the smile on the other end. "Be good." The line went dead.

VVVVV

Jack brought more flowers, and at Lois' suggestion, a big box of Pampers when he went round to Gwen and Rhys' house. Gwen's eyes lit up at the gift, and he was rewarded with a polite kiss on his cheek while Rhys watched, only mildly annoyed.

"He's adorable," Jack said, because it was expected and because the Winston Churchill joke was old even by his standards. Edward looked enough like Rhys and, the poor dear, Rhys' mum that any lingering doubts about how close Jack and Gwen might have been would be set to rest. Jack felt it in the ease in Rhys' manner around him, in the half-smile as he brought Jack some tea.

"You got kids?" Rhys asked him.

"You didn't tell him?" Jack said to Gwen.

"I'm not getting into the middle of that."

"Middle of what?" asked Rhys.

"Jack's daughter is seeing someone."

"Ah. Got herself a little boyfriend?"

"Johnson," Jack and Gwen said simultaneously.

"Johnson at Torchwood? Tried to blow you up the once? Tried to shoot us? That Johnson?" Jack nodded. "And you're okay with her seeing your little girl?"

"My 'little girl' is old enough to make her own decisions." Jack shrugged. "And I like Johnson better than my ex-son-in-law anyway."

"Bloody Torchwood."

Gwen said, "Lois tells me you signed the employment forms."

"I signed Andy's. He promptly announced our existence to everyone in the cafeteria."

"Oh!" She put her hand over her mouth and giggled. "I was afraid of that. What did you do?"

"I had Ianto Retcon Brenda. No one else heard. I hope."

"Who's Ianto?"

"The new fellow Lois is hiring to make the coffee." She chucked Edward under his pudgy little chin. "I told you about Lisa and her husband."

"Right."

Edward gurgled, and Jack made an excuse to go as Gwen got ready to feed him. As he opened the door, the postman was bringing a package up the walk. He stayed long enough to watch Gwen and Rhys open a gift from the Jones family: a new Snugli, in blue.

"This may come in handy," read the card.

VVVVV

Jack stood atop the building and looked out over his city as the sun set. He'd called Johnson in to help with a Weevil problem earlier in the afternoon, but that had been the only noise all day. Tosh's reports said the Rift was settling down into its normal patterns again. If his tampering with the timeline had upset it, the Doctor's future fix had made it happier. Or everything had all been coincidence, which he was willing to admit.

He didn't deserve this life.

He'd fucked up, more than fucked up. Chickens. Home. Roosting like mad. The 456 had been everything he'd ever secretly feared in the back of his mind, that the work he had begun in the Doctor's name was often the opposite of the Doctor's wishes. More, that given infinite time and space, he would only manage to make an infinite mess. Of course the 456 had taken away everything he'd loved; Jack himself had put those pieces there for anyone to knock down.

Someone had.

_Jack hears him say, "He was supposed to take that Welsh bitch in with him, too, but at least his little pet died." Jack doesn't hear much after that. Later, he'll replay the recording, the one the Master doesn't know the Doctor is transmitting to Jack:_

_"I spent a year trying to break him, and I couldn't. I killed him, and you know how imaginative I was when I did, and he refused to turn on you. I killed his friends in front of him, and he kept coming back. He wasn't broken. He was a challenge. And I had time, and power, and information, and I found out all his sins or at least all the ones on record. I knew where his demons were, and in one case, I knew how to call them back. The frequency was right there in the name._

_"Ah, Jack. Given an impossible task and an unbeatable foe, of course he'd storm in, guns blazing. He was supposed to take that Welsh bitch in with him, too, but at least his little pet died. There were cameras recording the whole thing. I watch it almost every night. Then came the next day, he had to kill a child and only one child was anywhere in sight, and oh, I made a special copy of that camera feed, too. When I need a pick me up, I play the recordings back to back, and it's a good night._

_"I knew he'd find you eventually, after he killed everything he loved, ask you, and I knew you'd say no. But I offered and do you know what he said he'd do? To have them back?"_

_The Doctor's tired voice: "I can guess."_

_"He said 'Anything.' And I had something in mind. All your companions, always so loyal to you, like your children. Disgusting." He leans into the Doctor, breathes in his ear intimately, "I'm going to turn your son. I'll record him killing you for me. It's going to be a triple feature tonight!"_

_He doesn't know Jack is in the room until the Webley touches the back of his damned skull with a click._

Jack wondered how the Doctor managed to keep going, knowing how his own past unspooled behind him like a mocking shadow. The Doctor made the hard decisions, and Jack knew what happened when he himself tried to take the easy ones. It was always Volcano Day for someone. Jack had let the lava come upon unsuspecting towns, more than once. He deserved to let it burn him to a crisp.

It had.

And the Doctor had reached into the fire and pulled him out.

_"Jack," he says, and his voice is incredibly gentle, loving. The Master called Jack his son, and in that moment, he can believe the emotion. The Doctor is calling him like a stray child: "Jack."_

_"They're gone," he says. "He took them from me."_

_"You took them yourself," says the Master, his composure already regained although his life is in Jack's shaking hands. "Your decisions. Your choices. That's the only way it could have worked. You did it all, Jack-o, Jack boy, Jacky."_

_"No."_

_"Oh yes."_

_"Jack," the Doctor says again. "Put the gun down. He's goading you."_

_"Do shut up," says the Master. "You know you want to kill one of us. Kill him, kill me. I still win either way. You're mine forever. Do it. Shoot!"_

_Jack wants to, wants just to squeeze. The Master has died before, they all have, but it will feel so good to watch him suffer for every time he killed Jack during that terrible year, for every nightmare Jack has had since the 456. Make him pay._

_"Jack." Still the gentle voice. "It's over. It's all over."_

_"You're a killer, Jack. You've always been a killer. What's one more death?"_

_"Everyone you lost, Jack, would they want you to do this?"_

_"They would! Take your revenge!"_

_"They wouldn't. You know that. You loved them. They loved you too, yeah?"_

_His vision is blurred. All he can see are too many faces lost for good. "Yeah."_

_"Don't make your last act for them a murder. Put the gun down. He has no power over you now."_

_"Do it!" the Master orders._

_Part of him is aware that the Doctor is fighting the Master for the charred remains of Jack's soul. For a crazy second, he envisions a fourth person coming into the room, someone perfect and beloved, who declares, "Actually, that's mine," and then at long last Jack will know who he is and where he belongs. But it's just a fantasy, and Jack already knows he's the only one who will ever save himself._

_He drops the gun. The Master hisses and gropes for it, but Jack isn't stupid, and punches him hard enough to throw him into the cell door._

_"Sorry," he says to the Doctor. "I'm so sorry."_

_"I know. Let's go."_

Jack waited until the last light faded from the horizon and the whole city was lit up with streetlights. Saturday night. Date night, or more usually, try to find a date night. He hadn't heard from Tosh or Mickey all day. He hoped they were having a good time.

Every day was the first day of the rest of his life. He had a long life in front of him, and a lot of first days.

Right now, he could go down into the streets, into the pubs, find someone, go back to his flat, and have what would pass for a fantastic night. He'd spent over a century with that very plan being his ideal evening, and with no upper limit to his lifespan, he'd no doubt spend many more centuries in many more pubs meeting many more willing partners. Not tonight.

He could drive over to Alice's house, preferably in Kevlar, and pester her until she relented and let him inside. Johnson would take another head shot, though. Scratch that. He had time to work his way back into Alice's good graces. That would take work, he knew; ever since Lucia had taken her into safety, he'd spent more time buying her affection than earning it.

He could go back down into the ruins of the archives. He'd been spending so much time there, hiding in his past because the future, any future, was frankly terrifying. Since the day Jack had realised how much future he had left, he'd been running away from it, covering himself in secrets, burying his foreknowledge in casual sex and the occasional longer relationship that he knew would end, telling himself nothing mattered, dying all over again when it did anyway. Hiding away tonight wouldn't solve anything.

So what did he want to do? Tonight? Forever?

When had he been happy?

_Her hair smells like shampoo, and she wants to watch telly with her dad, and he's busy and should be working, but he's also tired and hasn't seen her as much as he wanted this week, or the week before. Come to think of it, he hasn't been by in over a month. Jack lets her sprawl on him as her eyes drift shut._

_Rose's smile glitters as she takes his hand. The Doctor rolls his eyes at them, but then he gets a grin of his own as the three of them dash behind the boulders, and it is exhilarating and he has never felt so alive._

_He's back from what could have been permanent death, an unexpected gift from Gwen, and he holds her hand as he steps into the Hub. They come to him, one by one, and it's their love and sorrow and regret that builds him back to life as he embraces each one._

_Estelle is smiling up at him as though he is the most dashing man she's ever met, and he is._

_Ianto's head fits just perfectly in the crook of his arm, and Jack finds, against all expectation, that watching him sleep is even more enticing than waking him for more sex._

_He brushes Lucia's hair from her face and kisses her deeply._

The lights glittered below him as he frowned. It had always gone wrong. Always. Lucia had been right: Jack couldn't be with one person for long, not without burning through him or her. He wasn't made for being one half of a couple, being responsible for one person's entire happiness. He hated the notion of exclusiveness, sure, but it went further. Two was unnatural, unstable. Two meant he would take over the other person, or flee before he lost himself. Two meant always fighting for dominance with Lucia until what they had broke in half. Two meant John Hart, or whatever his name was today, spent each day for two weeks (five years) trying to kill him or fuck him or both. Two meant an empty chasm between him and the Doctor.

Two never worked for Jack.

Triads did. He was happy in a triad. Three meant he had a buffer, had a way out that was still a way in, had peace. Three meant two pillars to lean against instead of crumbling one alone, meant an extra voice to talk him down when he needed it instead of letting him shout the other into silence. Three meant stability.

_"Is it because they're both your type?"_

Beautiful, wonderful, sensible Lois, who'd taken one look at a relationship with Jack and run for the hills, had to be the one to point out the obvious, as Jack was clearly too stupid to notice himself.

He said a very rude word to the universe, but he smiled as he said it, and he knew exactly where he wanted to be.

Flowers and chocolates had never worked on Ianto, though Jack had tried them in his various attempts at non-"bend me over the desk right now" romance. From what he knew of Lisa, they wouldn't work on her, either. Dinners and movies could come later, would come later, he was sure, but if he didn't start out with a proper gesture, he'd never get their attention.

He wanted their attention.

As he made his way down in the lift, he hit on the perfect plan.

Jack reran the Rift activity logs over the past couple of days. Some things they'd picked up, others they'd let slide, now that they were getting more accurate readings on what was and wasn't landing in the Bay or on their heads. Since Lois had invented weekends, the Saturday readings, if they were small enough, could be held over until they had time.

_"Ten minutes," the Doctor says, once the TARDIS has calmed from having Jack aboard again. "I can give you ten minutes to say goodbye."_

_"You don't have to." But his pulse is racing, and he wants, oh he wants._

_"Call it a gift. Anyway," he pauses, looking down. "Even you can't get into much trouble in ten minutes."_

Jack was looking for a large Rift reading, but he'd take a small one. The important part was that it was tonight.

And there it was. A bit on the small side, and he would definitely have to pick up a larger one later, but Jack had found the perfect gift for the man and woman who thought they had it all. Well, almost perfect. Sadly, compys had no wings.

VVVVV

He rapped on the door a little louder than he intended. The dinosaur was safely stowed in a storage space a few miles away and could keep. In theory, he ought to wait until morning, but he couldn't. He'd been waiting for so long, and he wanted to see Ianto's face light up, wanted to learn just how bright Lisa's face could be.

"Hold on, hold on," came the grumble from the other side of the door, and before his ears properly registered, a face appeared. "Hello."

"Rhiannon?"

She smiled, a bit flustered. This Rhiannon hadn't met him after he'd bailed on a funeral, hadn't sobbed on his shirt until he'd had to flee entirely. "That's me. Have we met?"

"Not yet," he said, and turned on the charm. "But the night is young. Captain Jack Harkness."

"And you are here … ?"

"Looking for Ianto and Lisa. Are they in?"

"No. Gone on a date, haven't they? I told 'im I'd watch the kids, let them have a night out."

"Ah." There went that idea. He'd ask where they went, but it was one thing to come swashbuckling in, and another to join them on their first night out together since Isabelle's arrival. "Do you know when they'll be back?"

"Couple of hours. Think they've gone dancin'." His face must have fallen, because she said, "Is it important? I could call."

"No. I don't suppose I could wait?"

Rhiannon frowned, but just then, Callie peeped her head around her aunt's leg and squealed with delight. "Uncle Jack!"

He grinned at her. "You're up late, young lady."

"I can't get her to stay in bed. Kyle either. The baby's asleep, anyway."

"I can help," he said, and he filled the words with enough confidence that Rhiannon opened the door and let him inside.

VVVVV  
Epilogue  
VVVVV

It was past one when Ianto pulled the van into their parking space. Lisa covered her yawn with her hand, and he was tempted to steal her hand and kiss it, but she looked dead tired.

"We could still get that room," he said. "Rhi said she could stay all night."

"Or we could go inside and sleep."

"Sleep?" he asked, disappointed.

"Eventually."

She reached the door first and unlocked it. Ianto made one last grab for her, was rewarded with a nice touch of hip and a quick kiss before she said loudly, "We're back!"

"Hush," Rhiannon said, coming down the hallway. "They're in the living room."

Ianto said, "They have a bedroom."

"Yeah, well, they wouldn't stay in it, would they? Anyway, they had company."

Company?

He and Lisa went into the living room. The television was on low enough not to disturb the sleepers on the couch. Callie and Kyle had climbed on top of - Ianto was deeply confused - Jack Harkness, and all three had fallen asleep there. Jack had draped his coat over the back of the couch. Kyle's arm wrapped around one sleeve.

"They seemed happy to see him," Rhiannon whispered. "And anyway, he was great with them. Isabelle went to sleep about two hours ago, and they've all been changed." She pecked her brother on the cheek.

"You're not staying?"

"Nah. You've got a guest. I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"

"Yeah. Goodnight."

"Thanks again," said Lisa.

After Ianto saw her out, he picked up Callie and Lisa picked up Kyle, and they put them both back in their beds. Lisa found a spare blanket in the closet and threw it over Jack, who kept sleeping.

"He's mental," she said. "Cute, but mental. Are you sure you want to work for these people?"

"We could use the money. Rhi said she'd love seeing more of the kids." He watched the rise and fall of Jack's breath under the blanket, and curiously, nothing seemed out of place. Of course his soon-to-be boss, the time-traveling one who didn't die, would be passed out on Ianto's sofa. It made sense in the crazed way he was becoming used to regarding anything about Jack Harkness. Ianto thought back to the watch, to the rooftop, to the thrill of breaking into the school, to tasing someone who richly deserved it. "Anyway, it'll be fun."

Jack's eyes drifted open. "Hey. I got you a dinosaur. I gave it some chocolate." And with that curious pronouncement, he fell back asleep and didn't wake up again the rest of the night.

"Mental," Lisa said again.

"You like mental," Ianto said, and he took her hand and led her back towards their room for what he didn't know then would be the last time for just the two of them.

As their door shut, he leaned in to kiss her, and then hesitated. "Did he say 'dinosaur'?"

VVVVV  
The End  
VVVVV


End file.
